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IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 



ARTHUR LYNCH, M.P. 

AUTHOR OF 
■' MODERN AUTHORS : A REVIEW AND A FORECAST ' ; " APPROACHES : THE POOP. SCHOLAR'S 
QUEST OK A MECCA"; "A KORAN OF LOVE: THE CALIPH, AND OTHER POEMS '' ; " OUR 
POETS!" J " RELIGIO ATHLETAE " J " HUMAN DOCUMENTS " ; " UNE QUESTION DE REFRESEN 
TATION GEOMETRIQUE" ; " PRINCE AZREEL" \ " PSYCHOLOGY : A NEW SYSTEM" ; " PURPOSE 
AND EVOLUTION" ; "SONNETS OF THE BAJJNER AND THE STAR" ; " POPPY MEADOWS I ROMAN 

philosophique " (in French) In Press, Paris 



WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE 
AND MAPS 



PUBLISHERS 

THE JOHN C. WINSTON GO. 

PHILADELPHIA 



ft* 






PRINTED IN GREAT BEITAI N 






PEEFACE 

Ireland ! — a thorny subject. Ireland ! How shall 
I begin ? Why not take up anew the old lamp of 
Truth and calmly look upon whatever that may 
light ? It requires more courage to carry that lamp 
than to bear a standard on the battlefield. Be it so, 
the truth is all that in this life is consistent with 
itself. Better be dead than afraid of the Truth. 

I have set out to write a masculine book on 
Ireland ; one which shall not hesitate to probe and 
test, yet shall be fraught with good purpose. I have 
resolved to direct my eyes to the future, taking from 
the past only what seems to me necessary to explain 
the present and to point the way of progress. 

Nearly all books on Ireland are of a partisan char- 
acter ; nearly all are drenched in the strife, the ran- 
cours, the miseries of epochs from which we would 
gladly escape. Oliver Cromwell oppressed Ireland ! 
Let us regard that fact only for its information and 
its lesson, not to grow haggard in rage. Energy is 
too precious to spend in wasteful emotion. Validly, 
sincerely, I refuse to lose a night's rest for Oliver 
Cromwell in Ireland, 1 and, were she not a lady, I 
would be tempted to say the same of Queen Eliza- 

1 I had originally written : I do not care a " twopenny damn " for 
Oliver Cromwell ; the phrase is the Duke of Wellington's. This is, 
however, not only too trivial a fashion in dealing with Cromwell, but 
it does not represent my veritable opinion. It is mainly in regard to 
his conduct in Ireland that I formulate reserves as to his character. 



vi PREFACE 

beth. What is it to me that James II ran at the battle 
of the Boyne ? I only regret that a gallant people 
should have fought to keep that dolt upon his throne. 
Or again why sing dirges and weep over failures, 
deaths, and defeats ? Have we not realities enough 
to demand our tears, if indeed weeping be a helpful 
employment ? It is useless to deplore the past 
fate of Ireland. Conduct is Fate. Let us steep that 
into our souls. Let us look at the defeats and the 
downfalls not to rail at destiny, or lose our nerve in 
" keening/' but seriously to examine, to train our 
ideas, to fortify ourselves. 

For to bear all naked truths, 

And to envisage circumstance, all calm, 

That is the top of sovereignty. 

Let us even be cheerful, even in reading Irish history, 
or at any rate serene ; for anxiety, fear, depression, 
equally with rage, are bad counsellors. We want to 
see forces and prospects clearly, then to form our 
plans and to march forward with energy to win on 
those lines. 

It seems to me that we have reached a crisis which 
will try the Irish people in the crucible. 1 We have 
reached a crisis which will weigh the British nation 
in the scales. It is not well, however, to overbalance 
in heavy solemnity. I think that a candid spirit 
may treat even of deep things with a light touch. 

Above all it behoves to be sincere, to recognise that 
the problem is serious, that we want truth and illumi- 
nation, a brave cast to the future. In these terms 
possibly one may speak a few words helpful to Ireland, 
salutary to England also. 

1 I had written these words before I had seen a similar saying of 
Paul Dubois in " l'liiande contemporaine." 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

Glances at Irish History 



CHAPTER II 
Autobiographical 46 

CHAPTER III 
Actual Conditions 74 

CHAPTER IV 
The Irish in America 105 

CHAPTER V 
Priests in Politics 124 

CHAPTER VI 

Irish Organisations . . . . .170 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII 



CHAPTER XII 
Science .... 

CHAPTER XIII 
Ulster 



PAOE 



Sinn Fein 19! 

CHAPTER VIII 
Parliament .... 209 

CHAPTER IX 
Industrial Development . . . 232 

CHAPTER X 
Education 261 

CHAPTER XI 
Literature . 279 



319 



335 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XIV 



Conclusions 



IX 



PAI..E 

341 



CHAPTER XV 



Envoi 



345 



APPENDIX 

Agricultural Census 



349 



INDEX 



373 



Page 


271, 


line 
read 


ERRATUM 

8, for " they do 
"they do pass." 


not 


pass," 



LIST OF MAPS AT END OF BOOK 

Map i. Key Map of Ireland 

, ir. Centres of Manual Training (Woodwork), 1913-14 

, in. Day Secondary Schools, 1913-14 

, iv. Special Schools and Classes for Girls, 1913-14 

, v. Technical Schools and Classes, 1913-14 

, vi. Railway and Industrial Map 

, vii. Percentages of Catholics and Protestants in 
Ulster 

, viii. sdmmary of co-operative agricultural societies, 

1910 

, ix. Summary of Co-operative Poultry Societies, 1910 

, x. Summary of Co-operative Creameries, 1910 

, xi. Summary of Agricultural Banks, 1910 

, xii. General Distribution of Manufactures in Ireland 
in 1914 



IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 



CHAPTEE I 

GLANCES AT HISTORY 

Irish history is terribly entangled. I do not know 
if many read it thoroughly, beginning at the begin- 
ning and continuing consecutively. If they do, I 
would ask, how many come through that process- — I 
will not say wiser — but perfectly normal and sane ? 
I would especially fear for those who put their hearts 
into this work, and give free run to the passions of 
hope, joy, exaltation, indignation, and despair. 

Moreover in Irish history it is not easy to establish 
a sure basis for indignation. I remember once taking 
dejeuner at a cafe in Regent Street with the late 
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, who after an eventful 
life, devoted in great part to Ireland, had retired 
somewhat disillusioned as a politician but rare as a 
story-teller. He told me that an old friend of his 
was an enthusiastic historian ; he was accustomed 
to wax eloquent over the wrongs done to the Milesians. 
One day Duffy, calling on him, found him more 
excited than usual. 

" Well/' he asked, " have you found new wrongs 
done to the Milesians % " 

" Wrongs done to the Milesians ! " cried the 
1 



2 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

historian furiously. " No ! But Fve just discovered 
how those accursed pirates destroyed and robbed my 
own people ! " 

It is ever thus. There have been many successive 
invasions of Ireland and upon the original stock 
there have been grafted the breeds of the Iberians, 
Phoenicians, Danes, Normans, to say nothing of 
colonies and infiltrations of Anglo-Saxons, Dutch, 
Scots, and Huguenot French. My own family has 
been in Ireland not over long, — not yet eight hundred 
years it seems — but, while unable to claim descent, 
like the vast majority of the natives, from Irish Kings, 
they assert on grounds equally putative their origin 
from Charlemagne himself. 

The names of famous leaders and heroes often fail 
to bring us the real Hibernian smack — Wolfe Tone, 
Robert Emmet, Thomas Davis, John Michel, Charles 
Stuart Parnell, were not Milesians nor Firbolgs. 
Not one of them was a Roman Catholic. These 
facts familiar to schoolboys in Ireland do not seem 
to be well known in England, for recently in the 
House of Commons I heard the point emphasised as 
interesting and significant. 

It must not be supposed, however, that these 
leaders were not all Irish. Ireland is one of the 
most assimilative countries of the world, and a short 
time is sufficient to convert a good stranger, whether 
he descend from Italian Princes or Lincolnshire 
Yeomen, into something more Irish than the Irish 
themselves. This is a fact ever to be borne in mind 
in dealing with Ulster. The men of Belfast may be 
as loyal as you please, — of a somewhat disconcerting 
loyalty sometimes, — but they are as Irish as Parnell 
or John Dillon. 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 3 

This absorbing quality of Ireland does not affect 
merely manners, speech, or sympathies. It seems 
to bring the foreigner into a veritable affinity with 
the Irish people. And so it happens that though 
there is no Irish race in any strict sense, but rather a 
fusion of divers races of widely different sources, 
yet there is an Irish people, an Irish nation. As 
Napoleon said that there was a sort of secret bond 
between soldiers by which they knew each other, so 
there is amongst Irishmen. The Irishman from the 
North and the Irishman from the South may differ 
in appearance, in accent, in ideas ; they may be 
ready to fly at each others' throats on some chance 
allusion, or to the innocent strains of Boyne- Water, 
but at least they understand each other. I cannot 
but believe that the Unionist representatives of 
Ulster feel more at home with the Nationalists than 
either body with their respective English allies. 

Of late years in London we have had visits from 
the Abbey Theatre Company and from the Ulster 
Players, and these troupes gave us plays racy of the 
soil and admirably acted. I saw both and with 
equal enjoyment. But except for change of place, 
names, and accent, I would have been unable to say 
which play represented Connaught and which Ulster. 
In listening to the Ulster Players I was reminded of 
the first occasion on which I had seen Zola's drama, 
" rAssommoir," played in Paris. I had already seen 
an adaptation in English by Charles Reade under 
the title " Drink/' with Charles Warner in the part of 
Coupeau ; the acting was realistic and truly impres- 
sive. But in Paris I kept nudging myself mentally 
and crying involuntarily : " How French this is ! " 

And just so in studying an interior, even an Orange 



4 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

interior, of County Down or Antrim, as for instance 
in Rutherford Mayne's play, " The Drone." Every 
stroke of reality, every touch of human nature, made 
me exclaim : " How Irish it is ! " The gap is wide 
between these plays and modern English products 
such as " Hindle Wakes," or even that savorous study 
of character, " Buntie Pulls the Strings." 

It may be objected that I am not here writing 
history. Possibly not. What I am trying to do is 
to offer suggestions so that all Irish history, and Irish 
current events, may be the better interpreted. I 
have never read Irish history other than in a desultory 
way, and I would remark, in passing, that one who 
had a powerful influence in the making of modern 
Ireland— Parnell— seems hardly to have studied 
history at all. However, from time to time, I have 
read so much that I think it would be possible for 
me to sit down, to collate authorities, and to produce 
a dry and heavy tome, and gain kudos among states- 
men for that futile exercise. 

But that seems to me to lead to no understanding 
of Ireland, or the Irish ; we see through a glass 
darkly. For insight into the modern phases of 
Ireland, read rather Maria Edgeworth's delightful 
tales, such as " Castle Rackrent," or Lever— yes, 
Lever, whom exclusive Nationalists now affect to 
despise, but who is still irresistibly Irish. Do not, 
however, read except for enjoyment, " Charles O'Mal- 
ley," " Harry Lorrequer," read rather that work of 
reflexion of his maturer years, " The Dodd Family 
Abroad," with its wisdom wrapped in the choicest 
envelope of fine irony or rare and sapid philosophy. 1 

1 This book " The Dodd Family Abroad," which Lever himself 
thought his best, was the least read by the public. 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 5 

These works carry us along in a stream sparkling 
with lively scenes and witty talk ; and when one 
comes to the end, the least impressionable must ask : 
How could a country hold together, when these were 
specimens of its landed proprietors, its aristocrats — 
these ruthless, roystering good fellows, always ready 
for pistols and coffee in the morning, but vain, brain- 
less, improvident, and all lacking especially in any 
due sense of their duties ? 

The other side of the picture is told in the tales of 
Carleton, for instance, showing the terrible sufferings 
of the peasantry, but at the same time their lively 
courage, and, in spite of all sorts of apparent aber- 
rations, their unflinching tenacity. The great agri- 
cultural reforms with which the names of Parnell 
and Michael Davitt are associated are the legislative 
comment on what we learn in Maria Edge worth and 
in Carleton of Irish conditions and Irish character. 

It may be useful to know a little of Irish history 
for quite another reason ; and I am here reminded 
of the advice given by James Mill to his celebrated 
son, John Stuart Mill, to read Shakespeare, not 
because he held him in high esteem, but because it 
impressed audiences to quote from the great national 
poet. 

And in the same view I have known an Irish 
audience in London moved to enthusiasm, not by 
the prospects of the Home Eule Bill, but by the 
flowing speech of an orator who related the great 
doings in Ireland over a thousand years ago . Ireland 
was then the land of Saints and Scholars ; as for the 
Saxon, continued the orator, we washed him, and 
combed him, and taught him the rudiments ! The 
closing of these remarks was drowned in the applause 



6 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

they excited ; but the fervour of this antiquarian 
patriotism might well have been cooled by certain 
reflexions. If Ireland really had such a brilliant 
start in saintliness and education, at a time, more- 
over, when the population of the two islands was 
not so largely different, then there must have been 
some great and radical fault in the whole system of 
that education, to say nothing of the piety, to 
account for the later invasions of the English. 

Dr. P. W. Joyce in his book, recently republished, 
" A Social History of Ancient Ireland," says : " But 
the education for the lay community, in the sense 
in which the word ' education ' is used in the pre- 
ceding observations, was mainly for the higher classes 
and for those of the lower who had an irrepressible 
passion for book learning. The great body of the 
people could neither read nor write. Yet they were 
not uneducated, they had an education of another 
kind — reciting poetry, historic tales, and legends, — 
or listening to recitations — in which all people, high 
and low, took delight as mentioned elsewhere. 

"This was true education, a real exercise for the 
intellect and a real and refined enjoyment. In every 
hamlet there was one or more amateur reciters ; and 
this amusement was then more general than news- 
paper and story-reading is now." 

In another passage, speaking of education at a 
much later period, Joyce says : " Some were known 
as ' Bardic Schools ' in which were taught poetry, 
history, and general Irish literature. Some were for 
law, and some for other special professions. In the 
year 1571, hundreds of years subsequent to the 
period we are here treating of, Campion found schools 
for medicine and law in operation : — ' They speake 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 7 

Latine like a vulgar tongue, learned in their common 
schools of leach-craft and law, whereat they begin (as) 
children, and hold on sixteen or twenty years, con- 
ning by roate the aphorisms of Hypocrates and the 
Civil Institutions, and a few other parings of these 
two faculties/ The ' sixteen or twenty years ' is cer- 
tainly an exaggeration. The Bardic schools were the 
least technical of any ; and young laymen not 
intended for professions attended them — as many 
others in greater numbers attended the monastic 
schools — to get a good general education." 

Here indeed we find the flaw of education that was 
prevalent throughout the Middle Ages, and which 
has too long persisted in Ireland, the tendency to 
conceive of education as something remote from life 
and to set the chief distinction on literary achieve- 
ments. For here, nearly two thousand years after 
the efflorescence of the genius of the Greeks, and so 
long following that slow and solid building of the 
Romans which had given its stamp to the forms of our 
civilisation, we find the great Irish schools simply 
repeating the aphorisms of Hippocrates and copying 
the Latins in their lesser works. There is no hint here 
of that study of nature which was the principle of 
Hippocrates himself, nothing of that hardihood of 
enterprise that made the Romans great, still less of 
that wonderful modern spirit that allured Galileo to 
experiment, Descartes to analyse, or Vesalius to dis- 
sect. Rather the whole tendency of the education 
was to frown upon independence of mind, to slay the 
young nurslings of genius. 

I have dwelt a little on this point, because the 
matter is not entirely archaeological. Ireland was 
tried in the ordeals of old; her faulty vision of 



8 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

education allowed the gate to be opened to the 
strangers. In our day Ireland, and England too, are 
being tried in ordeals again, and the question will 
decide the destiny of Ireland and of England. It is 
useless to give merely artificial or conventional dis- 
tinction to false products of education ; the standards 
should have regard to the factors that fit men and 
nations to hold their own against competitors ; the 
great movement of the world, of Nature itself will 
determine what nations, and what types will survive ; 
and education should be conformable to that spirit. 

Leaving for the moment the question of education 
let us glance at another great fact of Irish history, of 
that period that finds its culmination in the defeat of 
the Danes at Clontarf in 1014. For over two centuries 
previous to this event, swarms of Danish buccaneers 
had been accustomed to descend upon the coast of 
Ireland at various points for the purpose of pillage 
and plunder. The Chroniclers are eloquent in their 
denunciation of the barbarities of these Pagans, and 
certainly, beheld in the clearest light, their cruelties 
seem to have been not cold-blooded atrocities but 
wild riots of bloodshed and massacre. We read that 
at the beginning of the ninth century the city of 
Armagh, famous for its cathedral and its monasteries, 
was besieged four times in one month. Bangor — a 
celebrated seat of learning and religion in those days 
— was carried by assault and the Abbot and nine 
hundred monks were massacred out of hand. The 
Monks of Inish Murray in County Sligo, after being 
witnesses of the destruction of their monastery, were 
ruthlessly slaughtered. And so the narrative con- 
tinues through the long decades. 

These events were terrifying, but in the retrospect 



GLANCES AT HISTOEY 9 

it behoves us to examine into causes, and here again 
we find fatal defects of education, if education be 
regarded in the larger sense. The Danes had to cross 
wide and stormy seas in frail ships before arriving 
at the coasts of Ireland, and the mere fact that, 
with a comparative handful of men, they should 
have effected successful raids upon the country testi- 
fies heavily against the condition and organisation of 
the Irish. The vast number of monks compared with 
that of available warriors is in these circumstances 
hardly a compensation, although it may afford an ex- 
planation of the depressed condition of the veritable 
genius of the people. 

In 1014 the famous Brian Boru, a capable leader 
as well as a man of large views, having risen, partly 
by diplomacy, partly by systematic usurpation, to 
the position of Monarch of Ireland determined to 
smash the power of the Danes. These ferocious 
warriors on their part had formed a plan for the 
decisive subjugation of the whole country. Then 
happened an event, so often paralleled in the annals 
of Ireland. The foreign foe found an ally in one of 
the powerful Irish Chieftains, Maelmordha, King of 
Leinster, who mustered all his bravesto join the Danish 
standard. It is not necessary to enter into the details 
of the battle. Suffice it to say the splendid valour 
of the Danes was overmatched in the impetuous on- 
slaught of the Irish, truly the greatest fighting men 
of the world when well trained, caught in the vein, 
and properly led. When the daughter of Brian Boru, 
who was married to a Danish Chieftain, Sitric, beheld 
the invaders in flight and making for the sea, she 
laughed tauntingly at her husband, and said, " The 
Danes seem to be in heat, but they tarry not for the 



10 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

milking." Her husband replied in the style of those 
" good old days " by a blow on the mouth which 
smashed a tooth. 1 

Another incident, which I have never seen properly 
elucidated, was that Brian Boru was slain in his own 
tent. 8 

But this victory, although it prevented Ireland 
from being a Danish province, had no effect in holding 
the country together as a cohesive, organised, pro- 
gressive nation. 3 The explanation is to be found in 

1 MacLiag's account is : " Then it was Brian's daughter said : ' It 
appears to me that the foreigners have gained their inheritance.' 

" ' What meanest thou, 0, woman ? ' said Olaf's Sitric. 

" ' The foreigners are going into the sea, their natural inheritance,' 
said she, ' I wonder is it a heat that is in them ; but they tarry not 
to be milked if it is ! ' 

" The son of Olaf became angered, and gave her a blow that broke 
her tooth out." 

2 Dr. Sigerson, whose name betrays his origin, has much to say on 
the battle of Clontarf which is at variance with the usual histories. 

3 In a learned article on Maelsechlainn (Malachy), Canon J. F. 
Lynch gives a terrible picture of the times : 

The idea of ridding Ireland of the Danes, which Professor 
Macalister has credited to Maelsechlainn, is just as absurd as 
Professor Macalister's notion that Maelsechlainn would have 
endeavoured to weld the Irish clans into one. Maelsechlainn, like 
all the other Irish Kings before and after him, fought with and 
plundered the Irish and the Foreigners alike for the sake of his 
clan and for the preservation and increase of his own power. 
In 983 Maelsechlainn, then in alliance with his half-brother, 
Gluniarain, King of the Dublin Danes, defeated in a bloody battle 
Domhnall Claen, King of Leinster, and Ivar, King of the Water- 
ford Danes, after which he plundered Leinster. 

In the course of the discussion he remarks : 

The Rev. Dr. Todd, in his Introduction to the " Wars of the 
Gaedhil with the Gaill," referring to Moore's poem on the conduct 
of the Dalcassians, who were wounded in the Battle of Clontarf, 
and who, when on their way home, were threatened with an 
attack by the men of Ossory, says : — " Here the poet assumes 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 11 

the characters of many of the Irish Chieftains. And 
if any fervid patriot thinks fit to become indignant 
at this point I would remind him that the landlords, 
the heroes of the stories of Maria Edgeworth and 
Lever, from whose tyranny and stupidity the country 
is only now emancipating itself, are in part the 
descendants of these magnificent, brave, but san- 
guinary, brutal, generous, ostentatious, vanity-mad, 
jealous, treacherous, and incorrigible Chiefs. 

Let us delay a moment on this matter taking a 
reference from Mr. R. Dunlop's " Ireland Under the 
Commonwealth " : 

In 1489 Shane O'Carroll, lord of Ely O'Carroll, 
a small district lying in the heart of Ireland and 
shired in 1576 as part of King's County, died. 
He left three sons — Mulrony, Owny Carragh, 
and Donough. Mulrony, being " the most 
esteemed captain in the land," succeeded him 
and died in 1532. By Celtic usage Mulrony 
ought to have been succeeded by either Owny or 
Donough, but he had an illegitimate son, which 
he " best loveth," called Ferganainm and on his 
death Ferganainm, or as the English called him 
Ferdinand, contrived to get himself elected Chief 
of the Clan to the exclusion of his Uncles. Ac- 
cording to the Irish annalist " many evils resulted 
to the County in consequence " of this irregular 

that the heroes whose valour he celebrates fell in battle in a 
national cause ; but the original story, as recorded in the present 
work, is that their enthusiasm was called forth, not in the cause 
of their country, but in the cause of their clan. ' Country ' 
was at that time in Ireland an unknown sentiment ; and even 
the author of these romantic fictions about the heroic wounded 
of the Dal Cais could conceive nothing more glorious than that 
they should display their heroism in the cause of their clan." 



12 IRELAND : VITAL HOUB 

election, not the least serious being the murder 
of Donough's son, William Maol, by Teige Caech, 
the son of Ferganainm. Naturally of course 
Ferganainm's uncle Owny had objected to the 
election, rendered to Ferganainm by his father- 
in-law, Gerald earl of Kildare, he managed to get 
himself chosen 0'Carroll " in opposition to Fer- 
ganainm, in consequence of which internal dis- 
sensions arose in Ely/' What induced Shane's 
third son Donough to interfere is not clear ; 
but in 1536 he raised a party on his own account, 
and having defeated Ferganainm and his own 
brother Owny he " deprived both of the lord- 
ship." Next year, however, he died or was 
murdered and Ferganainm recovered his position, 
only to be killed himself in 1541 by Donough's 
son Teige. Thereupon Ferganainm's son Teige 
Caech, the murderer of William Maol, got him- 
self elected chief. Teige was an enterprising 
man, and in order to prove himself worthy of his 
position made war on his Irish neighbours and 
the English. In 1548 he burned the town and 
monastery of Nenagh and caused great havoc in 
the Pale. All the same, Government, with the 
object of putting an end to these disturbances, 
consented to recognise him as head of the clan, 
and in 1552 he was created baron of Ely. Next 
year, however, he was killed by Donough's son 
Calvagh, who seized the chieftaincy. But his 
murder was speedily avenged by his half-brother 
William Odhar, who after slaying Calvagh and 
his brother Teige stepped himself into the position 
of chief, and in order to demonstrate his legiti- 
macy was soon at hot wars with his neighbours 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 13 

and the English of the Pale. Having satisfied 
Celtic custom in this respect, he came to terms 
with the Government, was recognised as lord of 
Ely and the succession secured to his illegitimate 
sons Shane and Calvagh. But the feud between 
him and the younger branch of the family sur- 
vived. Owny was dead, so were Donough and 
his three sons ; but Donough had married an 
O'Conor Faly and the O'Conors now took up 
the quarrel. One day in 1581 a party of them 
fell in with William Odhar, and having murdered 
him with every expression of hatred they threw 
his body to the wolves and ravens. William's 
son Shane succeeded. Next year he was mur- 
dered by his cousin Mulrony, the son of Teige 
Caech. The murder was speedily avenged by 
Shane's brother Calvagh, called Sir Charles by 
the English, who slew Mulrony and became him- 
self in turn lord of Ely O'Carroll ; but in 1600 
he too was murdered " by some petty gentlemen 
of the O'Carrolls and O'Meaghers." 

Such in brief is the story of the clan O'Carroll in 
the sixteenth century as recorded by the Irish them- 
selves. Now, if it is borne in mind that what was 
occurring in Ely O'Carroll was going on at the same 
time in almost every clan in Ireland — among the 
O'Neills of Tyrone, the O'Donnells of Tyrconnel, the 
Burkes of Connaught, the O'Briens of Thomond, the 
Fitzgeralds of Desmond, the 'Conors of Offaly, the 
O'Tooles of Wicklow — it does not require much 
searching to discover wherein the chief obstacles of 
the " reformation " of the country, as conceived by 
Henry VIII, lay. 



14 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

Coming nearer to our own day we find one whose 
name is still a potent spell to conjure with, or at 
least to swear by — " The curse of Crom'ell " is still 
the most potent of maledictions. Cromwell is 
credited with the saying, terrible though ineffective, 
that he would drive the Irish " to Hell or Con- 
naught." 

Yet Cromwell began with good intentions towards 
Ireland. Yes, that great, though ill-understood 
Welshman, glowing with Celtic fire, sportive even in 
serious matters, compassionate to the verge of weak- 
ness, — except on occasions — liberal enough even to 
embrace Mohammedanism in his kindly view ; this 
great impetuous spirit, this man of splendid aspira- 
tions, great accomplishments, meant well for Ireland. 
He understood men, we are told in one of his 
biographies, but that was in England ; in Ireland 
his psychology was singularly inadequate. The 
great remedy for Ireland in Crom well's view was 
coercion. He issued orders that no quarter should 
be given to the " wicked and bloody rebels of the 
Irish nation," that some of the milder malcontents 
should be transported to Barbados, that the rest 
should be compelled to work, — but not near to 
garrisons, that the property of the Nationalists 
should be confiscated, that there should be planted 
on the soil " godly sober Christians," and that the 
priests should be replaced by " godly and noble 
preachers of the Gospel." 

Compared with the pale attempts at coercion of 
our later days, CromwelFs methods bore a virile style 
and workmanlike stamp, but they were not successful. 
What is more curious is that Cromwell thought that 
by such means he might induce the people to become 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 15 

peaceful and loyal citizens and to " incline to Protes- 
tantism." He was sincerely grieved to find that the 
Irish falsified his hopes. 

Much keener appreciation of the realities of life 
in Ireland was shown by a certain Thomas Walsh 
who " renounced Popery/' and sided with the in- 
vaders, but who thereupon desired to dispose of his 
lands in Connaught and Clare and to live " this side 
of the Shannon/' as he expressed it, "to enjoy the 
society of good people." 

The history of Ireland throughout the centuries 
makes doleful reading, but perhaps less on account 
of the perpetual tales of rapine and blood, wrongs 
and revenges, than because of the sheer futilities in 
which these murderous struggles were always doomed 
to end. 

None of the successive plantations of Henry VIII, 
of Mary, of Elizabeth, down to those of William of 
Orange have flourished according to the intent of 
their promoters. The planters have become Irish, 
and most of them Nationalists. The people of Ulster 
are no exception, for Wolfe Tone's United Irishmen 
were largely recruited from the Northern province. 

At this point, however, it is possible to speak of 
the great dominating influence in Irish history — the 
power of the Catholic Church, even if its activities 
be viewed solely on the political side. Mr. Robert 
Dunlop says in the introduction to the study of 
" Ireland under the Commonwealth " : " In other 
words the rebellion presented itself to me as an 
episode in the great European struggle between 
Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, in which 
England and Ireland found themselves in opposite 
camps actuated by the special difference between 



16 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

them in the matter of legislative independence 
claimed by Ireland and denied by England." 

It seems to me necessary only to enlarge the scope 
of reference of these words in order to find the guiding 
thread through the labyrinth of struggles, intrigues, 
treacheries, deeds of violence, heroic sacrifices and 
disconcerting weaknesses, that constitute Irish history. 
What else could explain the devotion of the Irish 
to the cause of the Stuarts, the most brilliant and 
charming, the most worthless and insupportable of 
all the monarchs of England. James II, who had 
been a brave sea-captain, might have done wonders 
in Ireland had he seized the spirit of the people. He 
was the first to arrive in Dublin to report the disaster 
at the Boyne. " The cowardly Irish ran," he ex- 
plained. 

" Yes," retorted the Countess of Tyrconnell, 
" but your Majesty has out-distanced them." 

James really despised the Irish but they in their 
vernacular have repaid him that contempt in ten-fold 
force. Yet both the Old Pretender and the Young 
Pretender found troops of valiant Irish soldiers pre- 
pared to fight and die for their cause. That cause 
was reactionary. This I say, not from prejudice, for 
I was nurtured on Jacobite songs, and in my boyhood's 
dreams I beheld Bonnie Prince Charlie as the beau 
ideal of a gallant leader of men. Even now I can- 
not, without a quivering of the heart-strings, hear the 
strains of " What's a' the steer, kimmer ? " or " Bonnie 
Charlie's far awa\" Yet after all we cannot allow 
these mere fumes of traditions and superstitions to 
pervert our clear vision, nor consent to see a nation 
sinking under the spell of fidelity to false allegiance. 

In these pages the impress of the Catholic Church 



GLANCES AT HISTOKY 17 

in politics will be found again and again. Almost 
always where we encounter it, it will be found on 
the side of reaction. I am speaking of it here simply 
as a great political machine, and I am leaving aside 
its aspect as a spiritual force. It is not in the least 
degree my intention to discuss religious beliefs, and 
nothing must be read in that regard. Certainly I 
do not think with respect to the progress of a nation 
that religious beliefs are not important, or matters of 
which one should not inquire the origin and evolution. 
On the contrary, I believe that the life of a nation is 
greatly determined by the ideal that it holds up for its 
perpetual inspiration, and further I think that if the 
ideal be valid it has everything to gain by research. 
Smite it with the hammer of Thor, touch it with 
Ithuriers spear, and Truth arises the greater. If the 
ideal be false then it is useless to bolster it up with 
the titles of high, mystic, spiritual ; the stars in their 
courses will fight against it, the movement of the 
Universe will send it to limbo. 

Having said so much, with which all men will 
doubtless agree, I leave the question of religion, not 
because it is not vital, but to reserve it for a separate 
study ; in this book we may quite consistently take 
questions of faith for granted, and trace the course of 
political events amid political conditions. In this 
regard the history of Eome shows that its influence 
has nearly always been exerted on the side of England 
and, wherever there has been conflict, against Irish 
interests. The celebrated Bull of Pope Adrian IV 
gave Henry II the pretext for entering upon the 
conquest of Ireland ; while near our own time the 
Catholic Church intervened at the most critical point 
of modern Irish history when Monsignor Persico 
2 



18 IEELAND: VITAL HOUR 

arrived as the Papal Envoy to Ireland with the 
mission of enquiring into the character of the agita- 
tion for the land ; the Curia, contrary to Monsignor 
Persico's advice, endeavoured to stamp out that 
land campaign which laid the foundations of Ireland's 
regeneration. On that occasion the Irish people 
stood up manfully, and the famous saying first heard 
in O'ConnelFs time, flew like an evangel through 
the country : We take our religion from Borne but 
our politics from Home. Future historians may note 
that phrase as signalling the end of the Middle Ages 
for Ireland. 

Resuming our brief historical retrospect, we must 
touch on Grattan's Parliament. That celebrated 
assembly has in the course of the Irish struggle become 
invested with a sort of legendary halo. It is held up 
as a model ; and the restoration of Grattan's Parlia- 
ment has become a dream. 

Such indeed was my own impression until, after 
having been asked to lecture on the subject, I was 
induced to study the whole matter more attentively. 
I related to my audience the substance of what I 
had learnt and infused into my address no small 
fervour of admiration for Grattan, but I failed to 
excite enthusiasm. One of my hearers rose and said 
that if that was the best I could say for Grattan's 
Parliament his respect for that Parliament had fallen 
nearly to zero Fahrenheit ! On reflection I thought 
my friend, valiant Nationalist as he was, had only 
stretched the metaphor, that indeed if young Ireland 
could produce nothing better than Grattan's Parlia- 
ment as the warrant of Home Rule, then Home Rule 
was not worth fighting for. Grattan's Parliament 
was not a good Parliament. It was drawn from a 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 19 

class, and that class was composed entirely of Pro- 
testants. It was incompetent, but worst of all it 
was venal. The story of the Union has been often 
told, and the finger of scorn has been pointed at Pitt's 
agent of corruption, Castlereagh. Pitt himself was 
playing a great game in which Ireland was but a part, 
and all his policy was dominated by the task of 
baffling the growing power of France. Judged by 
that standard it is impossible to withhold admiration 
for the proud, harassed, but desperately striving 
figure of the English statesman. He meant better 
for Ireland than the outcome showed. Moreover, he 
carried his policy, and history flings its laurels on 
success. 

As to Castlereagh, he has been whitewashed in 
history, and in some quarters he has even been 
described as a hero. But apart from the estimation 
of politicians, there remains the judgment of a man 
who had a rare instixict for character ; that is Byron. 
The poet speaks of Castlereagh, not with the hostility 
of a political antagonist but always with ineffable 
contempt : " The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh/' 

Be that as it may the lowest depth was reached in 
Grattan's Parliament ; the shame, the ignominy, of 
this transaction of the Union was theirs — these men 
who sold their country for gold and who were allowed 
to acquire something more important than a potter's 
field with the price of the betrayal. 

Henry Flood was the " statesman " of the Irish 
party, the man of " judgment," whose judgment 
finally induced him to prefer a fat sinecure to the 
risks of public virtue. Grattan, the magnificent 
orator, theatrical but sincere, flamboyant but weak, 
appears in the cold light of facts more picturesque 



20 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

than effective. One cannot dispel calamities by 
metaphors, nor rule states by rhetoric. 

Grattan's Parliament really had its origin in the 
creation of the Volunteers ostensibly to assist England 
in her difficulties, but serviceable also in reminding 
England that Ireland had claims for recognition. 
Like all weak men Grattan was unwilling to seize and 
hold the effective instrument put into his hands. He 
allowed the Volunteers to disband ; and from that 
moment the fate of Grattan's Parliament was deter- 
mined ; its suppression was only a matter of oppor- 
tunity. Grattan's Parliament ? No. Remember 
that the fate of Ireland is now being weighed in the 
scales. If, after more than a century of experience 
and enlightenment, Ireland with her new oppor- 
tunities cannot evolve something better than Grattan's 
Parliament, something more representative, more 
solid, more alive to realities, more tenacious of pur- 
pose, more capable of development, and — this is the 
great thing — more honest, then the Irish cause will 
have proved itself a wretched failure after all. In the 
whole miserable story I am especially cast down by 
the dishonesty, not the dishonesty of bold buccaneer- 
ing cut-throats seizing with a strong hand, and 
holding on with undaunted purpose — that style of 
rapine which gave us the splendid Norman Conquest 
— but the dishonesty of paltry knaves, vain bluster- 
ing but weak, venal but pretentious, surely the most 
despicable ruling class that ever disgraced a country. 1 
Of all the Irishmen of that day Wolfe Tone alone 
seems to me to be — as Paoli said of the young Bona- 

1 One note of actuality may be here appended ; certain of these 
men who sold their oountry were, others became, the great landlords 
of Ireland. 



GLANCES AT HISTOKY 21 

parte — " one of Plutarch's men " ; the gay and 
gallant Tone who jotted down so light-heartedly the 
gossip of the hour or facts big with history ; who saw 
that only in the boldest scope of operations was 
victory possible; who impressed Napoleon Bona- 
parte, and who talked to Carnot like an engineer of 
conquest ; who fought like a hero, and who died a 
martyr. Tone required only a more spacious field 
and better fortune to have shown himself one of the 
greatest men of the time. He was unsuccessful be- 
cause he attempted the impossible ; though not till 
he had put the matter to the test and had flung into 
the scale the last ounce of his talent and courage, 
could the word impossible have been uttered of that 
great design of his— to found the Republic of Ireland, 
to banish religious differences, and weld a nation 
together in the hope of a larger destiny. 

But if that project of a Republic of Ireland was not 
feasible in the days of Wolfe Tone it is still more 
difficult now. In all the changes of conditions that 
have taken place since, nearly every one has tended 
to increase the advantages of England and to diminish 
those of Ireland. 

The heroic and pathetic figure of Robert Emmet 
stands before our gaze soon after the disappearance 
of Wolfe Tone. Emmet's youth, his talents, his 
manly beauty, 1 his idealism, his daring, his desperate 
act, his vibrating eloquence, and his death on the 
scaffold have all made him a most romantic figure, 
the darling hero of Ireland. He has been scoffed at 
by some politicians for what is called his hot-headed 
folly, and he has been somewhat " prettified " by 

1 In the English prints of the day Emmet is described as short, slender, 
ugly, pitted with_smallpox. 



22 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the poets ; but reading his words closely, and taking 
account of the circumstances of the time, I think we 
must find in Emmet a far higher degreeof judgment and 
statesmanlike quality than is usually ascribed to him. 
He too, like Tone, wanted only a larger field and fortune 
/ to have proved his qualities even by brilliant success. 
<*<^— "" — SfiiSrtKS in^urr^c^c^oTl^98, which marked the 
V highest point of the exasperation of Irishmen against 

English rule, we find the next great national move- 
ment, that for Catholic Emancipation, led by O'Con- 
nell. The character of the Liberator has caught the 
popular imagination above all others, and we find 
the evidence in a thousand stories which have become 
traditional, some true, some invented, most exag- 
gerated, but all revealing a generous nature, a happy 
turn of wit, searching sarcasm, or outright bursts of 
hearty laughter. Dan O'Connell epitomised Ireland. 
Physically he was a fine type— tall, broad-shouldered, 
deep-chested, powerfully but symmetrically formed, 
of athletic mould not by the effort of hard training 
but with the natural growth of a good stock; of 
handsome mobile features, with all the Celtic sympathy 
and variety of expression, eyes that beamed softly 
or flashed in scorn ; of a temperament easily inclined 
to histrionic movements, dramatic displays, symbolic 
poses. Dan O'Connell as a figurehead alone would 
have been great ; how great, we realise in that work 
of genius, the masterpiece of Foley, which stands as 
the one supreme work of art in Dublin, the figure cast 
in superb aplomb^yet breathing with a large and 
noble nature, restrained for a moment in the perfect 
balance of vast dynamic^powers. 1 

1 Though O'ConnelPs worlsfseems now so far off I once met a man 
(the late Mr. Denny Lane of Cork) ',who]knew hinTand had heard him 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 23 

O'Connell was more than any other of the Irish 
leaders the great Tribune of the people : easy, 
emotional, persuasive, deft in familiar touches and 
flashes of wit, yet rising on great occasions with magni- 
ficent strength, his voice rolling out its periods with 
organ-like volume and music. The Ciceronian style 
which has polished the utterance of some Irish orators 
and deluded only too many became to O'Connell an 
instrument wielded with power ; but into the form 
he had infused qualities which cannot be taught, the 
pathos, the humour, swaying the multitude to 
laughter or tears, exciting its emotions at will, sweep- 
ing it over with passionate gusts. 

In this character, however, there are weaknesses, 
wretched weaknesses, weaknesses of the flesh, weak- 
nesses of the spirit. Prompt to huge ballistic im- 
pulses in moments of inspiration, then again despon- 
dent, forlorn, unstable. I have heard many stories 
told of Dan's immorality, the indulgence with which 
these transgressions were regarded contrasting with 
the fury with which Parnell was hounded for offences 
less grave. The explanation is not that we live in a 
more virtuous age. O'Connell was essentially a child 
of the Church. His great achievement was the win- 
ning of Catholic Emancipation. But judged even by 
certain Nationalist standards now prevalent O'Connell 
would not rank very high. It is true, he spoke Irish ; 
but on the other hand he had no love for the language, 
he made no effort to extend it, rather he desired it 
to perish. When the French were in Bantry Bay, 
and Wolfe Tone was playing the game that was 
destined to lead him to his doom, O'Connell, then a 
young man of twenty-two, hesitated. He wrote in 
his Journal : " Liberty is in my bosom less a principle 



24 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

than a passion." But soon he settled down, and he 
continued : " But I know that the victories of the 
French would be attended with bad consequences. 
The Irish people are not yet sufficiently enlightened 
to be able to bear the sun of freedom. " 

O'Connell was in fact born of the landlord class, he 
had been educated in a reactionary circle, and he had 
been frightened by the excesses, and also no less by 
the great ideals, of the Revolution which had driven 
him from France. Already in his own lifetime he 
had become too tame for the fiery spirits of whom we 
hear next, the Young Irelanders, the men of '48. 
'Council's movement for Catholic Emancipation 
had roused the Nationalists of Ireland to a deep 
sense of patriotism in regard to matters beyond the 
scope of religion. The immense demonstrations 
which the Liberator had conjured up presented him 
with problems with which he found himself unable to 
cope. Younger and more active spirits succeeded 
him and they became impatient with the old leader's 
Whiggish ideas, and with the lack of nerve and 
decision, or the absence of any definite programme 
which characterised his latter days. 

The Young Irelanders gave us one of the most 
brilliant, but it must be added, one of the most 
ineffective chapters of Irish history. That chapter 
is adorned with the names of Smith O'Brien, 
John Mitchel, Thomas Davis, Thomas Francis 
Meagher, M. Doheny, 1 and others, such as Charles 
Gavan Duffy, whose cooler judgment made them 

1 I have heard Stephens in his old age say, that he had heard orators 
in many lands — I believe he had heard Meagher himself — and the 
most powerful of all was Doheny. In offering this judgment, how- 
ever, it must be remembered that Doheny's style of oratory was that 
suited to audiences in Irish country districts. 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 25 

possibly better counsellors in times of peace, but 

has somewhat dimmed their glory amongst the 

constellation of Irish heroes. Many of the leaders, . . 

notably Smith O'Brien, Thornae M itchel, and Thomas JW^ 
•/ .I . i m - — —-^— ■ ■ -■■-■ — ■" i '"f 

Davis, were Protestants ; they were idealists who • 
reckoned personal sacrifice as nothing compared 
with the greatness and the destiny of their country. 
They were, no doubt, too idealistic, for while inflaming 
the passions of the people they seemed never to have 
thought of providing any adequate machinery or 
plan for utilising this force for any valid rehabilitation 
of Ireland. An immense flood of enthusiasm, energy 
and brilliant hopes ended in a show of rebellion not 
without its absurd features, at Ballingarry in Tipper- 
ary, and finally in the transportation of the princi- 
pal leaders. This certainly seemed a dismal failure. 
But no effort, no sacrifice, no high hope flown before 
the imagination of a people is ever finally lost. John 
Mitchel, Thomas Davis, Thomas Francis Meagher, 
have been potent inspirators to two generations of 
Irishmen, and their personalities are far more vivid 
and real now than any or all of those who have held 
high offices in Ireland and who have been counted 
great statesmen in their day. John Mitchel's " Jail 
Journal " has become a sort of testament of National- 
ism, and has educated in the spirit of patriotism 
countless thousands of Irish descent who have never 
seen the green fields of Erin. The patriotic verses 
of Thomas Davis have been recited, his songs have 
been sung, wherever Irishmen have gathered together, 
— in sheep-runs of Australia, in lonely mountain 
camps of Montana, in deep Canadian forests, or in 
the great populous cities of Chicago, and New York, 
where Irishmen have toiled and thriven and helped 



26 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

to shape the destinies of the great Republic of the 
West. 

Meagher has become a figure comparable to that 
of Emmet. It is impossible for an Irishman now, after 
all the lapse of years, to read his famous speech from 
the dock at Clonmel without a tingling of the nerves, 
a flushing of the blood, and an irresistible mounting 
of the spirit, which is a spontaneous tribute to the 
genius of his glowing oratory. Emmet died in 
disgrace and Meagher suffered the degradations of 
transportation, yet their contemporaries also are 
dead and now forgotten, and most Irishmen will say 
that it was better to have failed in the ideal hopes 
of the patriots, than to live to gather wealth and 
title and power, to reap public honours, by the deser- 
tion or betrayal of their native land. Be that as it 
may, Mitchel, Davis, and Meagher, are still names 
potent to stir an Irish assembly ; they still influence 
the lives of millions of the Irish race, for it is by such 
subtle links that the Irish people are held together ; 
generation calls to generation, and the torch of 
patriotism is handed down from one band of heroes 
to another throughout the long and desperate cam- 
paign for liberty. 

After the fall of the Young Irelanders Charles 
Gavan Duffy proceeded to Australia with the con- 
viction, as he expressed it, that Ireland was stretched 
like a corpse on the dissecting-table. In Australia 
he rose rapidly to power ; he received a knighthood 
from the Queen. His career is significant in this, at 
least, that it shows how much of genuine talent and 
statesmanlike capacity run to waste in Ireland through 
want of an outlet, through want of means of utilising 
the intellectual resources of the nation. 



GLANCES AT HISTOEY 27 

Ireland, however, was not a corpse on the dis- 
secting-table. Though frequently clouded by fits 
of despondency, Ireland has always shown immense 
vitality. The Young Irelanders had hardly disap- 
peared when their movement was replaced by some- 
thing more formidable, and at the same time, better 
calculated to appeal to the bulk of the people. The 
new men called themselves Fenians, that is to say, 
children of the Fianna, legendary Irish heroes. 
The Fenians were the first to grasp thoroughly the 
real significance of organisation. The movement was 
secret. The Irish have a great love of secrecy, not 
always displayed, however, in the ability to keep 
that treasure. The Fenian movement had oaths 
and formalities, signs and countersigns, which greatly 
impressed those who entered into its magic circle. 
The leaders were drawn, as a rule, from a class less 
educated and less comfortable than that of the 
Young Irelanders, but many of them were men not 
only of great courage and force of character, but also 
of genuine talent. The leader in Ireland was James 
Stephens. 

This secret organisation had a newspaper to which 
Stephens was a contributor, and of which the shining 
lights were Kickham, Luby, and John O'Leary. All 
three men were of exceptional character and ability. 
Kickham became known in Ireland as the author of 
tales and romances * comparable to those of Carleton. 
Luby was afterwards recognised as a literary man of 
distinction in the United States. John OXeary I 
knew in his later years, and recognised in him a man 
of high literary culture, but above all a man of 

1 Kickham's " Knocknagow " is especially esteemed for its true 
delineations of Irish character. 



28 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

unimpeachable integrity. He was, moreover, in 
spite of a record which was made to appear very 
terrible in State documents, one of the most amiable 
of men, so that even his failings, for he was vain 
and impracticable in his idealism, leaned to virtue's 
side. I can picture him vividly, with his tall thin 
figure, his eagle eyes and sharp features, his long 
beard, his aspect of an Old Testament prophet as he 
discoursed from a great wealth of experience on all 
things Irish, or discussed French literature and cited 
French passages with subtle appreciation but with 
an accent more redolent of Tipperary than of the 
rue Corneille, near the Odeon, where he lived for 
many years. I can also picture him sitting in his 
chair, absorbed in deep reflections, submitting to the 
talk of some new enthusiast developing his plan for 
a fresh movement, John listening with patience, or 
with impatience only signified by the crossing and 
recrossing of his legs or by the emphasis of his cigar, 
then suddenly starting out of his armchair with the 
devastating demand : " But in the name of God 
what good would that do to Ireland ? " 

The Fenian movement struck very deep in Ireland. 
It had ramifications in the most unexpected quarters. 
It spread through part of the Army itself. One of 
the most active agents of the propaganda in the Army 
was a remarkable man of whom it may be well to 
say a few words : John Boyle O'Reilly. He was a 
sergeant in the Army at the time, the beau ideal of 
a light dragoon, active, alert, with a handsome 
dashing style, magnificent build, though not on the 
big side, and full of energy. Years afterwards I 
had some conversation about him with the celebrated 
John L. Sullivan with whom he had boxed, and John 



GLANCES AT HISTOEY 29 

L. said with appreciation : "He was about ten stone 
ten, and a good man of his weight." Praise of this 
kind from such a man outweighs a volume of eulogy 
from lesser mortals ; it reminded me at the time 
of Gentleman Jackson's 1 indulgent appreciation of 
Byron who, he declared, was a good ten-stone man. 

I do not make the comparison even with any 
sense of strain for there was in John Boyle O'Reilly 
a fund of true poetry. He had indeed a touch of 
Byron, a touch of Meagher, a touch of Pindar him- 
self, as well as manly qualities all his own. This 
man, ostracised and degraded in these islands, was 
transported to Western Australia. Escaping from 
captivity in one of the most romantic adventures in 
the minor history of these realms, he settled in the 
city of Boston in the United States. In a public 
garden there may be seen a memorial erected to his 
memory on the part not only of the Irish but of 
American citizens of culture who were his friends. 
One night in company with Jeffrey Roche, 2 at that 
time the editor of the " Boston Pilot," and another 
excellent writer, Mr. Joseph Smith, of Lowell, I made 
a pilgrimage to the memorial, and while the moon- 
beams threw an enchanting light upon the scene 
there was fixed in my mind an impression of O'Reilly's 
Grecian profile, handsome face ; and I listened to 
many stories of his goodness of heart as well as of 
his high literary accomplishments. 

It is well to mention these things so that all may 
know that it does not suffice to dismiss the Fenian 

1 Byron refers more than once to the famous boxer who was his 
athletic mentor, and whose sculptural proportions he greatly admired. 

2 James Jeffrey Roche has left behind some stirring patriotic 
American poems and songs. 



30 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

movement, in the manner of such English histories 
as treat of it, as the campaign of a mere band of 
ruffians, wreaking indiscriminate violence upon the 
lives and property of law-abiding citizens. Many of 
the Fenians were reckless and violent men, but no 
band of revolutionaries in any country have ever 
been more self-sacrificing or more patient in their 
own misfortunes. Moreover, it is impossible to 
understand present-day events without recognising 
that the Fenian movement has been the foundation 
on which all that has subsequently been accomplished 
has been built. Without the Fenian movement 
there would have been no Land Campaign and con- 
sequently no settlement of that vexed question which 
has been at the root of Irish difficulties for so long. 
Parnell was indeed the successor of Stephens for, 
though his methods were different, the animating 
spirit was akin and he profited by the deeply-laid 
organisation at which the Fenians had worked. 
For the rest it may be said that the individual leaders 
all incurred personal ruin, most of them enduring 
long terms of imprisonment, while several of the 
minor lights ended their careers on the scaffold. 

There was one episode of the Fenian movement 
that deserves particular notice ; that was the rescue 
on 18th September, 1876, at Hyde Road in Salford, 
Manchester, from the prison van, of the Fenian 
leaders, Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasy. During 
the struggle for their release a police officer, Sergeant 
Brett, was killed. Arrests were subsequently made 
and three men, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien, were 
tried for the offence, sentenced to death and hanged. 
The extraordinary nature of the event as well as the 
daring of the enterprise struck popular imagination 



GLANCES AT HISTOEY 31 

both in Ireland and in England. In England that 
feeling found expression not merely in the execration 
of the men themselves but also in a passion of in- 
dignation against Irish people everywhere ; in Ire- 
land the corresponding feeling exalted these men to 
the rank of heroes. The courage with which they 
met their fate enhanced their reputation, and that 
popular poet of the Irish people, Mr. T. D. Sullivan, 
whose death has recently been recorded, was inspired 
to write some verses to the tune of a marching song 
of the North in the great American Civil War ; and 
by the force of the appeal to popular sentiment these 
verses have become a kind of national anthem. 
" God save Ireland " has been sung at Irish gather- 
ings throughout the world and its impressive strains 
have had no small part in speeding on the Irish 
movement. 

The Fenians were the first to extend the Irish 
movement to America. They were not well received, 
I believe, by some of the distinguished representa- 
tives of the Young Icelanders of '48, but their teach- 
ings spread like wildfire through the great mass of 
the Irish people. It has been due mainly to their 
organisation and its successors, such as the formid- 
able Clan-na-Gael, that the Irish in the United States 
have become the bulwark of the National cause. 
The Fenian movement was stamped out ruthlessly 
in Ireland. Men were sentenced to long terms of 
imprisonment for offences not actual but possible, 
with a disregard for the interests of the law which 
in the course of history will contrast strangely with 
the tolerance extended to that system of rebellion 
which has been openly organised and developed in 
Ulster. 



32 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

After the disappearance of the Young Ireland 
movement the Irish Party in Parliament had fallen 
for a time into discredit, the representatives having 
been for the most part men deficient either in talent 
or in principle. 

The next notable leader of influence was Isaac Butt, 
a brilliant lawyer, who formed an organisation, but 
relied too much on the force of oratory and the 
intrigue of Parliament. Butt really accomplished 
nothing, although nominally he was the first to 
formulate the Home Rule movement as later under- 
stood ; and as evidence of the milder manners which 
now prevail his name is more frequently cited with 
respect than in the strenuous days of Parnell. 

The rise of Charles Stuart Parnell has been an 
enigma to many English students of politics, and, 
as his character is becoming already invested with 
legendary attributes in Ireland, it may appear even 
more difficult in the future to seize the real nature 
of the man. One reason of his popularity, no doubt, 
was that Irishmen are never long content to have 
a tame and forceless leader such as Butt with all 
his talent proved to be. Butt publicly rebuked 
Parnell in the House of Commons and that was the 
beginning of his downfall and of the corresponding 
rise of the new champion. Parnell, at his first appear- 
ance in public life in Ireland, did not seem to have 
any of the requisite qualities of a great leader. He 
was stiff and cold in his manner, his oratory was 
halting and tame, he had no exuberance, nor appar- 
ently even the desire to gain popularity. Moreover, 
he knew little about Irish affairs, he was ignorant of 
pohtics generally and he lacked the art of touching 
the pride or the susceptibility or the courage of 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 33 

Irishmen by those apt appeals to the brilliant phases 
of their history or to the memories of great heroes 
of the past which are a favourite means of popular 
orators. Moreover, though he aspired to be a leader 
of the people he hailed from the landlord class and 
had a descent not too remote from English stock. 
This ancestry, however, really helped him. We 
have already seen of what despicable material some 
of the powerful Irish Chieftains of old were com- 
posed, but the Irish people throughout the ages 
have been noted for a devotion to their leaders. 
This was no doubt sedulously developed in their 
minds by the influence of religion. It had its good 
side, but it had, and has to this day, an aspect less 
respectable, and that is shown in a deference not 
merely to those in authority but to those having 
nothing better to boast of than title, show, and an 
ascendancy built on the servitude of the people. 
This feeling aided undoubtedly Parnell at the begin- 
ning of his career. Even some of the most demo- 
cratic were proud to have him as leader. 

I remember a conversation with a well-known 
Member of Parliament, who took pride in his " ad- 
vanced " ideas, but who nevertheless in solemnly 
laying down the qualifications required of a leader of 
the Irish Party put particular stress on descent from 
an old family, and on the possession of landed pro- 
perty and sufficient wealth to make some display in 
the world. Certainly at the beginning of his career 
these were the only apparent qualifications of Parnell. 
He was never a man of wit or of high intellect, and 
he had none of those showy qualities which, quite 
apart from their virtues, were fascinating in men like 
Sheridan or O'Connell. What then was the secret 
3 



34 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

of Parnell ? It might be called steadiness of pur- 
pose, but that does not convey the precise meaning. 
In ParnelTs determination there was something of 
feeling like an outwardly cold but concentrated 
passion. But whatever its source this characteristic 
quality of his coming into play at a critical point of 
Irish history gave direction to the forces always 
available amongst the Irish people. 

Contrast this phase of Irish history with any other 
of the past. Again and again we have seen mar- 
vellous examples of energy and reckless courage and 
heroic devotion, but hardly ever well-directed con- 
stant consistent efforts making steadfastly for a goal 
in spite of bafflings, disappointments, and disasters 
that might He in the way. This is a quality which 
in ordinary parlance is called grit, or for which a 
word seems to have been specially coined or thrown 
into relief in ParneH's case — steel. One seems to 
see it in the very physique of the man, with his slight 
but sinewy frame, and those remarkable eyes, which 
looked so steadily and keenly at what they gazed 
upon ; it may be seen in the proud curl of the lip, 
the indefinable haughtiness of manner, which seems 
to be pervaded with an air of noblesse oblige ; it is 
seen also in the manner of his utterance, in the style 
of his proclamations. Not at all a man of highly 
endowed brain power, his mind seems to have worked 
slowly, but when it did arrive at a decision that 
decision was held with obstinate force. He was not 
a solid granite character, such as we sometimes 
picture in history but which I think is rather a pro- 
duct of the historian's fancy than a representative of 
real life. Parnell resembles Csesar and Bonaparte in 
being one whose acts were framed in the fire of pas- 



GLANCES AT HISTOKY 35 

sion ; a nervous man — there was a sense of a nervous 
power held in firm control even in the coolness 
he displayed in the hours of crisis — and his deter- 
mination was of that fierce proud contentious 
character which communicates its spirit to others ; 
it found response in the hearts of his countrymen, 
who above all others take the complexion of the 
man who leads. 

After Butt's eloquent periods, and flabby policy 
distinguished by diplomatic ineptitudes, it was a 
relief and a joy, an inspiration, to find one who could 
strike fire from the Irish people and screw to high 
tension the warlike chords in their nature. It was 
that which won for Parnell command, and which 
gave him the strength and motive power to march 
from victory to victory. 

Later, at the moment when his fate was being 
decided in the Committee-room of the Irish Party, 
Mr. Timothy Healy who had become one of his 
strongest opponents used a striking image. He said 
that Parnell was like the iron core of an electrical 
magnet, charged with attractive magnetism while 
the current passed, inert and forceless when the 
current had ceased. The current he said, was 
supplied by the Irish Party. That striking image 
would be true of many leaders, but it was not entirely 
true of Parnell. The confidence, the enthusiasm, 
the extraordinary devotion, which the Irish people 
at one time displayed towards him certainly en- 
livened and intensified the force of his actions, but 
Parnell himself in his own particular genius had 
brought into Irish affairs the essential quality which 
had always been missing, and which has been less in 
evidence since his downfall. He presented to the 



36 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

world the spectacle of a nation standing up like an 
army scathed and shattered with the wounds of 
many battles, wrung with famine, and distress, but 
with a gleam of victory in the eyes of the soldiers, 
and the determination to march dauntlessly over 
every danger to accomplish the final triumph. And 
Parnell wrought this wonder ; it was he himself who 
was the soul of the movement ; his great and gallant 
heart could face any difficulty except that of the 
treachery and ingratitude which struck the vital 
blow. During his career, though brief as we regard 
it in the retrospect, he elevated the Irish agitation 
out of that character of sterility which had previously 
marked it. The positions he gained will stand for 
all time as definite gains. They were revolutions 
not merely good for Ireland, but such as will eventu- 
ally transform the conditions of life in England also. 
We have seen something of the type of those old 
chiefs who have merely simmered down into modern 
landlords — the full-blooded, valiant, ignorant, reck- 
less, vain, generous, showy, but tyrannical wastrels ; 
the counterpart of that character was found in the 
conditions under which the tenant lived, the toil- 
some, hard-working tenant robbed and rackrented, 
rendered cross-grained and suspicious by extortion, 
brought to lying by injustice, made morally timid by 
a tyranny against which he had no recourse. Parnell 
changed all that. Once at a public meeting in 
Ireland, after several well-known orators had adorned 
the scene and pleased the people with flamboyant 
oratory, an old man, one of the veterans of the 
fight as he was called, was invited, or rather pushed 
on to the platform to say a few words. His words 
were indeed few, but I have seldom heard a more 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 37 

impressive speech or one more calculated to strike 
the imagination and to sink deep into the thoughts. 
He simply said : " Before Parnell came we used to go 
to the agent to pay our rents like this," — and he 
walked across the platform with a bent, mean, fawn- 
ing, and furtive air ; after Parnell came, he said : " We 
walked like this/' — he stood erect, he threw his 
shoulders back, his eyes flashed, and he walked like 
a man content to come to terms but determined to 
shatter his opponents if he met with unfair resis- 
tance. The audience seeing the two pictures was 
electrified. Then all burst into rapturous cheers. 
Those two pictures might typify the period of Parnell. 

There was no element of romance wanting in the 
career of Parnell. This man with the straight figure, 
the Norman profile, the uncommunicative manner, 
gradually became looked upon as a romantic as well 
as an heroic figure, and all sorts of stories found 
vogue, the more readily on account of the lack of 
real information. He became the man of secrecy, 
the man of mystery. His appearance changed from 
time to time ; sometimes he had a fresh debonnair 
style that conquered all hearts ; at other times, with 
beard untrimmed and dishevelled hair and haggard 
eye, his sudden and unexpected appearance amongst 
his colleagues gave rise to all manner of conjectures. 

It may be well to note two or three incidents, of 
no great importance in themselves, but which send 
a plummet here and there into his character. Mr. 
T. P. O'Connor, I think it is, gives us a touch of 
Parnell — at one time stopping on a country road to 
eat some sandwiches which he had carried in his 
pocket, and turning his back to the main road and 
facing the fields, eating shyly like a diffident school- 



38 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

boy. Another story is that when the famous Go-as- 
you-please contests were in fashion, Parnell noticed 
that an Irish American, O'Leary, was making a great 
show at the Agricultural grounds in some com- 
petitions organised by the late Sir John Astley, who 
was famous in all sport but was a bitter opponent of 
Home Rule. Parnell invited some of his colleagues 
to go with him and cheer the Irishman on his toil- 
some rounds, and when O'Leary finally won the 
band struck up not " God Save the Queen/' as had 
been arranged, but the " Wearing of the Green." 
Sir John Astley was amazed and furious, Parnell 
and his friends laughed like schoolboys. Parnell had 
bribed the band which, moreover, as sometimes 
happened at true British functions, was a German 
band. Another story is that of the celebrated 
mystery bag which Parnell always carried when 
attending the sessions of the Parnell Commissions. 
It was not enough for Parnell constantly to carry 
this in his hand, it was said in the graphic style of 
the reporter that he always " clutched it tightly." 
All sorts of plans and ruses were set in motion to 
obtain possession of this little black bag, and after 
much patience one of the devices was successful. 
The bag was opened cautiously and it was found to 
contain — a change of socks. 

Still another story has been told of him by one of 
the extremists — a man who having involved himself 
deeply in a certain affair found it necessary to clear 
off to the United States. As an extreme man 
difficult to please, he held Parnell only in tempered 
regard. He said that on one occasion a meeting 
had been arranged in Paris between some of the 
leaders on the American as well as on the Irish side 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 39 

to meet Parnell. The question involved was import- 
ant both from a financial point of view and from 
that of the direction which the future policy would 
take. On the day appointed for the meeting Parnell 
had not appeared. There was no intimation as to 
the reason of his absence, or as to his present where- 
abouts. Friends in England, Ireland, and on the 
Continent were communicated with. No one knew 
where Parnell was to be found. Day after day the 
delegates met. Still there was no sign of Parnell. 
Those who had come from America were daily 
growing more impatient ; they threatened to return 
home. However, the matter was so serious that a 
search was made throughout all the hotels in Paris 
to see if by chance Parnell was lying ill in one of 
them. A letter was found at a quiet inn addressed 
to Parnell and his friends did not hesitate to open it. 
The missive was from a lady, and it threw a beam 
of light on the amorous side of ParnelFs character. 
The letter was sealed up again as carefully as pos- 
sible, and the delegates determined to wait a little 
longer. In a day or two Parnell appeared at the 
appointed meeting-place. He took his seat at the 
head of the table without making any reference to 
his previous absence, and forthwith entered upon 
the business in hand, displaying promptitude and 
decision in all matters which arose in discussion. 

It is not necessary to deal in detail with ParnelFs 
achievements. They are written on the Statute 
Book of Great Britain. They are found every day in 
the lives, the hopes, the character, of the Irish people. 
His downfall is one of the most disgraceful episodes 
of Irish history, the more mournful because it dis- 
plays not merely ingratitude, on which it is not 



40 IEELAND : VITAL HOUR 

necessary to lay too great stress, but something 
which strikes even more vitally at the confidence of 
the nation, the shiftiness, and indecision, the weak- 
ness and the final fierce inrush towards the side of 
cowardly counsels. In all this the influence of the 
priests was undoubtedly the determining factor, and 
if there be a grain of comfort in that view of the 
matter it is, that there was then held up to the Irish 
people the nature of the plot by which their hopes 
of national redemption were weighed and sacrificed 
to the political thraldom in which the Church had 
held them. 

Here it is necessary to say a few words on an- 
other great character whose work was co-ordinate 
with that of Parnell and whose fame is familiarly 
associated with his — Michael Davitt. Parnell was 
an aristocrat, Davitt was the son of peasants. Each 
derived his own particular strength from such inci- 
dental circumstances. Davitt has now become a 
historical figure. He has left behind fascinating 
books which while telling the history of Ireland illus- 
trate also his own career. It is not necessary further 
to enlarge upon his deeds, I will content myself with 
recalling one or two personal reminiscences. 

Irish society is full of wheels within wheels, and 
Irish politics have always shown a profusion of rings 
within rings, and so it happened that this great 
man, one of the principal artisans of a marvellous 
work of Ireland's regeneration, was made known to 
me first by aspersions on his name uttered not by 
Englishmen but by Irishmen who called themselves 
more advanced than Davitt himself. He was accused 
of vanity, self-seeking, show and pretence, and no 
credit was given to him for any accomplishment. I 



GLANCES AT HISTOEY 41 

saw him first at a public meeting at St. James's 
Hall, London, a meeting as far as I remember of 
Labour representatives. Some good speeches were 
made, but Davitt's struck me as being one of the 
best. What I remember of that occasion is the im- 
pression rather of his personal appearance — a tall, 
thin, straight, black-haired, eagle-eyed man, with 
an empty sleeve where his right arm should have 
been. In his speech his voice rose and fell in 
cadences ; this together with a fine musical note 
contrasted well with the forcible but somewhat 
monotonous shouting of his confreres on the plat- 
form. 

Much later I met Davitt in South Africa. The 
short beard had become streaked with grey, the hair 
once of raven blackness, had become scanty, but the 
eye retained all its keenness, its liveliness, its 
lustre. I had expected to meet a hard cantankerous 
and intolerant man, impatient of all ideas which did 
not concord with his own ; on the contrary I found 
him smiling, in every way sympathetic. A little 
later we met at the table of General Louis Botha, 
when Mrs. Botha was present. A few of the officers 
had also been invited, and some of the men, dispatch 
riders and so forth, came in and out without cere- 
mony in the usual democratic style of South Africa. 
Here again I admired Davitt, and I observed once 
more as so often, the wonderful adaptability of 
Irishmen. Here was this man of peasant descent, 
who during his boyhood had been accustomed to 
hard manual toil, who had never at any time had 
the advantage of education, except such as he could 
procure in his leisure, fired as he was with the love 
of knowledge and the noble ambition to rise to in- 



42 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

tellectual heights ; this man who had suffered long 
imprisonment and many persecutions, now here in a 
foreign country, amongst men of great authority; 
yet Davitt had not only the ease and charm of an 
educated Irishman but something of a rare and 
simple courtliness such as one associates with a 
Spanish don, but with no show or pretence, or 
apparent effort except that which rose from his 
kindly genial nature ; he had at once won the hearts 
of all the guests. He always spoke simply, with no 
strained endeavour at impression and always with 
good sound common sense. 

Subsequently at my own laager I had a more con- 
fidential talk with him, and we discussed some phases 
of the early Irish history of his time with which I 
had been unacquainted. He had a low opinion of 
Parnell. I regret to say it, for I do not share that 
opinion, but it was a perfectly honest opinion with 
Davitt, and I would be departing from my view of 
historic fairness if I neglected to set it down. He 
said ParnelFs ascendancy had meant the downfall 
of Irish politics. He had not been a great force. 
He was a cold-blooded sensualist, there was a great 
deal of self in his career in Irish politics, his dictator- 
ship was a regrettable episode in Irish life and one 
which he hoped would never again be repeated. All 
this, he said calmly and reflectively. 

I discussed another subject with Davitt ; I said 
to him there was an element in my character which 
I had never been able to judge of as good or bad — 
that I could never hate anyone. I said many people 
had tried to injure me, but after immediate contact 
with them, I could never preserve my animosity, 
and not even by trying to whip up a recollection 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 43 

could I hold my resentment towards individuals : 
Now, I said, is that a good quality or is it a sign of 
some deep-seated weakness of fibre ? Davitt replied, 
" Well I do not know, all that I can say is that I 
think it is a lucky possession ; speaking for myself, I 
think there are some men whom I never can forgive " 
— and here he mentioned an Irishman who is still a 
distinguished ornament of Parliament. 

Perhaps even in Davitt's depreciation of Parnell 
entered some element of the immemorial hostility of 
his class toward that of the landlords. Singularly 
enough that feeling is in existence with the senti- 
ment of due respect to title which I have already 
indicated as a factor of ParnelFs success. Davitt 
was one of those who had been thrown into the 
Irish agitation by the memory of flagrant wrongs to 
his family and neighbours, of which he had been a 
witness at a very early age. There was no doubt 
whatever of his Celtic temperament ; it was seen in 
his high-pitched idealism as well as in the mobility 
of his mind, the imagination and passion of his 
temperament. He was a man who had suffered 
much and in whom the iron had entered into his soul, 
and at any time he was prepared to risk life itself 
for the liberation of Ireland. I will not say that in 
this character there was not narrowness, many 
limitations, it seems to me, but with all there was a 
quality which made Davitt the chosen vessel of a 
great movement, he was of the stuff of warriors and 
martyrs ; possibly in this his very narrowness and 
want of early education aided him by permitting the 
concentration of all his powers on what he saw of 
the task before him magnified as the whole end of 
national life. 



44 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

Nothing would have seemed more hopeless at first 
than the programme of the crippled young man, 
known only as having suffered what some considered 
a degrading imprisonment, what others believed to 
be nothing but a madcap escapade of a fanatic, 
without friends, without a platform, without organi- 
sation, without money. Yet he had something which 
compensated for all, he had a clear vision of his 
distant goal, and he had faith in himself and in 
Ireland. Davitt began his land campaign in the 
country districts of Mayo * and persuaded a few 
adherents. For a time his movement seemed to 
rival that of Parnell himself, but the two coalesced 
at last to the profit of Parnell. 

Davitt before his death was able to write a history 
of this campaign ; it might be taken as in great part 
a story of his own life ; and he was able to call it : 
" The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland." Rarely has 
any tribune of the people started from such small 
beginnings and achieved in so short a time so great 
a triumph. 

This brief historical retrospect has now been 
brought practically to our own times. We find that 
in Ireland's devious and perilous course there have 
been wild and lurid passages, but even in disaster 
the history has been marked by the heroism of 
brilliant men. 

There have been mean passages, such as that of 
the regime of Sadleir when the Irish cause was 
reduced to a mere juggling of finance and intrigue of 
office. There have been futile passages as when 
under the leadership of Mr. Shaw it was thought 

1 The first meeting of the Land League was held at a little village 
in Mayo called Irishtown. 



GLANCES AT HISTORY 45 

sufficient to abandon all means of offence or defence, 
and for a policy to substitute a plea for tolerance 
and indulgence by the British Government. Then 
we have the Home Rule movement of our own day 
under the guidance of a leader, Mr. John Redmond, 
more highly equipped than any of his predecessors 
in knowledge of Parliamentary procedure, and more 
fully endowed with qualities of diplomacy, including 
patience and resourcefulness. The success of this 
movement concerns the present ; the ratification of 
that success will be the immediate task of the 
Irish people. 

What is the lesson that arises from this broad 
review ? No movement is ever likely to achieve 
success in Ireland which is not founded upon the 
genius of the Irish race, which does not keep alive 
that energy, and stimulate the spirit of valour and 
enterprise. In other words what is required is a 
policy which holds clearly a great national ideal, 
which points the march towards the final completion 
through a series of positions to be attacked and won, 
which while showing friendliness towards the British 
people and nation prizes self-government as the 
highest good, which is inspired by Ireland's destiny 
and flamed through and through in every act, as 
well as in the broad scope of policy, with a fierce 
determination to fight the way to victory. 



CHAPTER II 

AUTOBIOGEAPHICAL 

The Irish problem has many faces. Few have 
looked upon it on all sides, and unfortunately the 
testimony of those of greatest knowledge is not always 
the best, for all things Irish have the faculty of stir- 
ring the emotions, evoking the passions, and play- 
ing on prejudice. Of none of these detriments to 
clear vision do I pretend to be free, and it is for 
that reason that, speaking often in the first person, 
I desire to explain to the reader my point of view, 
my experiences, even my shortcomings, so that he 
may be put upon his guard in those parts where my 
opinion is likely to be warped by undue influence. 

At the time of my trial I received many letters 
from friends, acquaintances, and total strangers, 
Irish and English ; some simply abusive, some en- 
couraging. It must not be supposed that the com- 
forting letters were all from the Irish and the abusive 
from the English. It is necessary to send the 
plummet deep in order to fathom human nature ; 
and so it happened that one circumstance that left 
me desolate was that I found myself deserted by so 
many friends and looked askance at by others who 
had professed my political views but who were afraid 
of being compromised by attempts at realisation. 
On the other hand from all quarters, and from all 

46 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 47 

ranks, I received assurances of sympathy from 
English people who recognised that rightly or wrongly 
— wrongly, they generally believed — I had fought in 
South Africa not for gain or ambition but for a 
principle and an Ideal. I reflected that if these 
people could overcome their prejudices, emancipate 
themselves from what was cramping in their environ- 
ment, how much the more did it become a duty in 
me to scourge out the dross of lower motives, hates, 
and rancours, that might have influenced my acts. 

In the midst of these reflections came a letter 
which more than all others caused me to ponder. 
The writer was one of those young Oxford men who 
had been smitten by the Toynbee spirit, and of whom 
my only criticism is that of the old horsy man who 
said of his colts : " Take away all their vice, and 
you take away most of their spirit." . . . Youth 
should flower with ambition, dreams, and lofty 
hopes ; it should stream with colour, zest, and joy ; 
passions should be the hot fuel to drive it on, and 
virtues the temperance, the control, and direction 
of these. 

The writer had some connection with a weekly 
illustrated paper to which I had been a contributor, 
and on the basis of this acquaintance he reproved 
me not angrily but with regret. He said that my 
deeds had not been in the true way of evolution. 
Now whereas misrepresentation, ill-tempered censure 
and abuse had not weighed upon my spirit, this 
phrase sank deeply into my mind, and it was in the 
light of that criticism that often in the depths of a 
prison cell I reviewed not only these acts but all the 
forces that in my life had produced them. I felt 
that any life, or part of a life, spent in beating into 



48 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

back waters is wasted. And this is true of nations 
as well as of individuals, and is none the less true, 
however stirring or brilliant, speaking impersonally, 
may have been the story of such an enterprise. 

I will touch therefore on my career only in as far 
as it concerns that question, not because I wish to 
make myself of importance here but because the 
Irish cause has been widened far beyond the limits 
of Ireland, and the sentiment of men of Irish descent 
has modified the political situation throughout the 
Dominions as well as in the United States. 

My father was an Irishman, born in County Clare 
of a family of which Galway had been the home for 
centuries. The commerce between Galway and Spain 
has left its impress on that stock. My father had 
the stately bearing of a Spaniard combined with 
goodness of heart and generosity of giving carried 
even to excess. He had gone to Australia in the 
early days, and in 1854, in Ballarat seized with the 
gold-fever which was then at its height, he was one of 
the miners who rebelled against the intolerable system 
under which the country was then governed. The 
miners were organised into a fighting force under the 
leadership of Peter Lalor, afterwards Speaker of the 
Legislative Assembly of Victoria. My father, John 
Lynch, was the second in command. For their 
defence the miners threw up a rough fort, which has 
since become famous in the history of Victoria as the 
Eureka stockade. Inflammatory speeches were made 
and the greatest enthusiasm prevailed. Troops were 
sent up from Melbourne. Then, as usually happens 
in such cases, all sorts of pretexts, many excellent 
no doubt, were found for desertion. A small number 
of the miners, not more than six hundred, stuck 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 49 

to their guns, and amongst them were the leadeis 
Peter Lalor and John Lynch. Lalor lost an arm 
in the fight, my father was knocked senseless in the 
stockade by a chip struck from a palisade by a ball. 
He was taken prisoner, and a trial set on foot for 
High Treason. By this time, however, the tide of 
feeling throughout the whole country was so strong 
in favour of the miners' claims that the Crown 
arranged that the trials should fall through. The 
troopers who had taken my father prisoner declined 
to identify him. The Eureka stockade became the 
foundation of Australian self-government. Fifty 
years afterwards a great demonstration was held on 
the site of the stockade, and John Lynch, the sole 
survivor, was acclaimed as a hero on the spot where 
he had been arrested as a rebel. 

My father hailed from an old Catholic family, one 
which had been cast down from power and opulence 
on account of its devotion to the Church. His 
favourite poets, however, were Shelley, Byron, and 
Burns. I have heard one of the " old identities " 
say that after the day's work he would sometimes 
entertain the miners by the hour by reciting from 
memory the poems of Robbie Burns. 

Soon after the affair of the Eureka stockade he 
settled down at Smythesdale, near Ballarat, to his 
profession of civil engineer, and mining and land 
surveyor of the district ; he became prosperous, and 
might have accumulated great wealth had he set 
much store on that side of life. His pursuits, how- 
ever, were all intellectual, and this gave a sort of 
solitariness to his character amid a young community 
where every man was at hand grips with immediate 
realities. Nevertheless I can say, for I heard it 
4 



50 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

often in my boyhood, no man was ever more uni- 
versally respected by all classes and by all creeds in 
the districts. 

My mother was a MacGregor, a kinswoman, how 
close I cannot now say, of the famous Rob Roy. 
Though the blood of the famous rebel clan ran richly 
in her veins, its spirit had never found lodgment by a 
gentler soul. If my father was " looked up to " by 
the neighbours, she was above all thought of for her 
goodness. She divined what was best in others, 
and in her presence the best came to the surface. 

I mention these matters only to show that I grew 
up in Australia amid the happiest associations, and 
that my advocacy of the Irish cause has had no 
spring in rancorous or traditional hatreds, still less 
in the memories of injustice, oppression, and wrong 
such as have produced the flaming revolts of thousands 
of Irishmen, even of the type of Michael Davitt 
himself. 

Still less was there any question of religion in- 
volved. My father, though a scion of an old Catholic 
family, never once that I remember went to Church. 
Our house was always hospitably open to the priests, 
but also at times to ministers of other religions. I 
have known my father on occasion to speak in scath- 
ing terms of the traditional rapacity of the Church, 
although the free expression of subversive opinion 
did not prevent him from subscribing to funds set 
on foot by the priests. Once, however, in my boy- 
hood — and the words afterwards acquired signifi- 
cance — I heard him say that if the Church were being 
driven to the wall that was the time to rally to its 
defence. I was astonished to hear these words at 
the time, coming from one so bold and independent 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 51 

in thought. It seemed to me that, after all, a Church 
should live or die on the truth or falsehood of the 
doctrines it taught ; that if the doctrines were true 
they should be maintained for that reason alone ; 
if they were false, then it was absurd to buttress 
them up simply because others attacked them. 

I never afterwards heard him speak in that strain, 
and I do not know whether it was not a mere idea of 
the moment. It gave me, however, an explanation 
of certain phases of Irish history, as, for instance, 
the devotion to the Stuart cause. The Church itself 
was involved, and the insignia of the Church became 
like that banner, the Labarum, which Constantine 
displayed in the front of his army. The Church 
had authority not only as an exponent of doctrines 
but far more potently as the bond of union and of 
recognition of a vast organisation, social and militant. 
The clear conception of that position, united with the 
generous but combative and fiercely tenacious spirit 
of the Irish, seems to me to explain much of Irish 
history. 

Here again I restrict myself to the political aspect 
of this question ; even while noting that the restric- 
tion is artificial, for a religion is something of pro- 
founder significance than a flag or the pass-word of 
an association ; and entering as it does into the 
modes of thought, habits, the set of character, and 
the ideals of its followers, impinging, moreover, upon 
every aspect of the lesser concerns as well as of the 
great concerns of their existence, it is inevitable that 
by the truth or by the falsity of its teachings a 
devoted people must rise or fall. 

Another saying of my father's I recollect ; in the 
early days of Parnellism an Englishman, a well- 



52 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

meaning man, completely ignorant of Irish affairs, 
was deploring in his presence the tendency of the 
Irish to crime, as he said. I saw the fire of battle 
flash in my father's eyes. He gave a description of 
the kind of landlord held up as a martyr and victim 
in the English press, denounced their tyrannies in 
vehement terms, and referring to the shooting of 
one of them declared that if ever a bullet was blessed 
in Heaven it was one that found such a scoundreFs 
heart. 

Now although — or I think, I should say, because 
— a mere boy at the time I was not shocked at the 
shooting but I was astonished to find in my father, 
high-minded and good, an outburst so fierce. What, 
I asked, is there in the dark history of Ireland, that 
after the lapse of a generation, and across the seas 
of half a world, could leave impressions so deep and 
feelings so terrible ? Yet neither then nor now 
have I thought it well to keep alive those resent- 
ments of the past. 

Another feeling, more potent because deeper and 
more subtle, had influence upon my regard to Eng- 
land. I have always been a Republican. That again 
arose not from any strain or revolt, but simply and 
naturally. To be a freeman, to feel one's self a being 
of responsibility, that to me was what was meant 
by being a Republican. 

Having said so much I proceed to explain in what 
manner my first contact with England affected me. 
I had completed a course of study in Melbourne, but 
whereas all my feelings were vehement, my desire 
for knowledge was a passion. To continue my 
studies I proceeded to the University of Berlin. 
With nearer approach I felt more strongly the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 53 

attraction of the fight for liberty which the Irish 
people were waging. At length I arrived in Eng- 
land ; but it was not till after the downfall of Parnell 
that I felt drawn into the vortex. 

Parnell had been a great name in Australia ; dis- 
tance had lent its usual enchantment, so that, even 
while still living he had there become a kind of 
legendary figure, endowed with qualities which were 
not his, disassociated from weaknesses and faults 
which may have been his ; but after all losing in 
force and real greatness by this idealisation. 

I only saw him once ; that was at a public meet- 
ing in Bermondsey, where I sat amongst the audi- 
ence. My expectations had been worked up to a 
high degree, all my sympathies were on ParnelPs 
side, and yet, though I could hardly confess it even 
to myself, my first impression was one of disappoint- 
ment. ParnelFs tall figure and spare frame looked 
inadequate, neither strong, nor graceful ; when he 
spoke his voice sounded cold and ineffective, nor were 
his arguments either very forceful or fraught with 
that assurance of ultimate victory that makes en- 
thusiasm compensate for numbers and rallies to a 
cause the youth and valour of the people. The 
speech was practical, dealing mainly with the 
material advantages of a Bill before the House of 
Commons ; and this appeal, though valid and use- 
ful, was again not what I had expected from a great 
fighting man in a desperate situation. The voice 
was English ; there was nothing there of the breadth 
and warmth, the cordial notes of the Irishman. He 
spoke nevertheless like a practised orator who had 
command, within his means, of all the resources of 
his art. But though the fire was lacking in this 



54 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

speech, the kindling enthusiasm of the missionary of 
a great cause, yet the manner made its due impres- 
sion by reason of the simplicity, the absence of pre- 
tentiousness, the air of sincerity with which the 
speech was delivered. In proposing a vote of thanks 
subsequently to the Chairman, who was an English- 
man, Parnell smiled with pleasure at this discovery, 
and there was apparent then in his whole bearing a 
winning courtesy, the gentleness of a proud spirit, 
in which the well-attuned voice served him better 
than in the chilly accents of its strident utterance. 
After the meeting I longed to say a word to him but 
that peculiar touch of hauteur which seemed part 
of his being checked me in making an advance which 
would have been easier towards a lower type, or 
even towards a higher of more magnetic quality. 
I never saw him again. Yet the impression was 
deep. All the way from Bermondsey to Bayswater 
where I then lived I walked so that this impression 
should remain firmly stamped, and when I reached 
my rooms after midnight I wrote down a descrip- 
tion, as exact as I could make it, of the great leader. 

I had seen Parnell in his decline, the tall, thin 
man, with the sharp clear-cut features of the aristo- 
crat, the full fair beard, the hair of the head of fine 
texture becoming scanty, the eye large and dark, 
attentive and bright, sometimes flaring with sombre 
lustre, the eye that attracted attention always, the 
eye of a man of purpose, the precise and somewhat 
chilly voice, the whole bearing, style, manners, and 
accent of a gentleman. 

From this aspect I could reconstitute the younger 
Parnell of the early days, the more athletic appear- 
ance, the more determined and forceful character, 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 55 

the man of steel. Not then did I consider him, — 
and indeed not now, — as a man of intellect. More- 
over he was not a man of sympathetic attractiveness. 
In the United States I was told that at first Parnell 
made an unfavourable impression amongst the New 
York Irish leaders, until by experience they dis- 
covered his strong qualities. 

Not a word of this must be read in disparagement. 
I have heard him described by " intellectuels " even 
amongst his own followers as a figure-head, or as a 
mystery ; as though indeed any diplomatic repre- 
sentative in ParnelFs place might have accomplished 
as much. I do not believe it. Parnell and Davitt 
were the great agents of Ireland's redemption. Ten 
thousand workers, millions of vows, a million sterling 
warrants of sympathy, sped on the Irish cause, and 
around Parnell shone forth a pleiad of stars, men of 
the diverse types of Dillon, O'Brien, Healy, Sexton, 
Redmond, O'Connor, to mention a few who still sur- 
vive. But, as I afterwards noticed in South Africa, 
the spirit of a commando is quickened by the soul of 
the Commandant. Anyone who glances through 
Irish history and estimates with cool discernment 
will see that Parnell brought into the public life of 
the country that quality most of all required, the 
quality that ensures that a well-considered and 
adequate programme will be carried out with un- 
flinching determination — the quality of steel. 

The divorce court proceedings excited me greatly. 
They brought out the sympathetic human side of 
ParnelFs character. There were peccadilloes of 
sexual relations that stood to his discredit, but 
tested on the grounds of morality itself there has 
always been a tendency, when these matters become 



56 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

official, to throw them out in relief of undue impor- 
tance in the perspective of life. A man should be 
judged by the whole intent and accomplishment of 
his career. 

Besides Parneirs lapses from morality were not 
more inexcusable than those of O'Connell, or, not to 
remain with Irish names alone, Nelson's, Marl- 
borough's, or the list of British kings. Be that as 
it may Parnell was not condemned at the outset by 
the hierarchy of the Church on the score of morality. 
It was after the verdict of the Divorce Court that a 
great meeting was held at Leinster Hall in Dublin 
at which an enthusiastic vote of confidence in Par- 
nell was passed with the approval of high dignitaries 
of the Church. The Nonconformist conscience in 
England was less easily appeased, and by that influ- 
ence Gladstone was moved, not for moral but for 
political reasons, to repudiate the Irish Leader. Then 
in Ireland the reaction began to set in, and the man 
who had been carried to the skies at Leinster Hall 
was forthwith flung to the depths. He was deposed 
from the leadership of the Irish Party. He was 
assaulted in Ireland ; he became the butt of abuse 
and calumny. Not only the Irish Party but the 
Irish people in Ireland, and indeed the Irish people 
throughout the world, became divided into two camps 
— Parnellites and Anti-Parnellites. The priests, with 
few exceptions, threw in their weight on the scale 
against Parnell. 

Then came the death of the Chief. This event 
caused a shock throughout the Irish community ; 
hate and rancour gave way to a feeling of loss, a 
deep sense of regret. A great chapter of Ireland's 
history had been closed ; who could foresee the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 57 

future ? But the passions that had been stirred 
were too deep, the interests at stake too important 
to permit the quarrel to be closed up, and in the 
General Election which followed the issue was still 
Parnellite and Anti-Parnellite, and the battles were 
fierce. 

It was at this stage that I entered definitely into 
Irish politics. It was not that I was moved by my 
father's principle of rallying to a cause that was 
going to the wall ; I believed that even after the 
death of "The Chief" Parnellite principles might 
still prevail. I believed that the progress of Ireland 
lay in that direction. At this time I had but a 
scanty acquaintance with Ireland beyond what I 
had read or derived by Irish instinct. Nevertheless 
I determined to stand for Galway. Arriving in the 
famous Citie of the Tribes, a stranger, I soon found 
myself adopted as Parnellite candidate, and at once I 
launched into an energetic campaign. My speeches 
were fiery with the spirit of independence and soon 
the town was bubbling with excitement. My op- 
ponent was a man named Pinkerton, a Unitarian 
Ulster farmer who had been taken to the bosom of 
the priests in Galway. In three weeks, charged as 
they were with emotion varied by the contact with 
material facts, I seemed to learn more of Irish 
politics, Irish character, Irish ways, than I could 
have gathered by six years' study of books, docu- 
ments, and speeches. Never shall I forget the im- 
pression of cordial Irish friendliness, of the enthusiasm 
of help offered to me unstintedly as the champion of 
the cause of the people. Never shall I forget either 
the awaking to the discovery that the principles, 
the ideals, great banners though they be, are yet 



58 IEELAND : VITAL HOUE 

nothing more than the banners waving over a per- 
fect dsedalus of considerations, interests, obligations, 
wonderfully interlaced. Nor shall I forget the 
revelation of the fighting quality of the Irishmen of 
the West, for more than once I was attacked, and 
the blackthorns of my supporters flashed all at once 
in strokes so rapid and strong that Achilles himself 
might have gasped in delight. 

What a race this was ! So ardent, so brave, and 
strong, so tireless, undaunted, and true. Galway 
was not a city to sack, but what a people to fight 
for were here. Yet I was beaten ! I was beaten by 
the priests. We had swept over the town ; but even 
my experienced electioneers were no match for those 
arch-intriguers, mad on winning their point, re- 
specting neither scruple nor truth. It was reported 
that I had retired from the contest, it was averred in 
a forged telegram purporting to come from Mel- 
bourne that I was known there as a card-sharper, 
and that Johnson was my real name. Bribery, 
menaces, impersonation did the rest. My opponent 
was elected by fifty-two votes. 

After all the years that have passed, after having 
been on a fateful occasion elected for Galway, I do 
not now write to exhale past bitterness, but simply 
that the verity of these matters should be known. 
The Irish cause is too great and good to have need of 
other support than that of truth. It has always 
been my instinct to avoid cunning in politics, and as 
my experience increases I have less and less respect 
for mere astuteness, duplicity, deception. 

Since that election of Galway I have never attached 
much importance to the argument that a constitu- 
ency is sure to be free from priestly domination 



AUTOBIOGEAPHICAL 59 

because it returns a Protestant member. No more 
signal example of the power and method of the 
priests could have been adduced than this election 
in which Mr. Pinkerton, whatever his talents and 
virtues, was nothing more than a cypher, a pawn in 
the game. 

The Galway election closed for a time my connec- 
tion with Irish politics. I retired to Paris hoping 
to resume in quiet those studies in science which had 
attracted me, but which the Irish campaign had so 
violently interrupted. But the virus of battle had 
gone into my blood. I desired to see Ireland entirely 
independent, a Republic, and during my sojourn on 
the Continent I sought and tested every means by 
which that consummation might be achieved. Long 
before the South African war I had convinced myself 
of the impracticability, at least by physical force, of 
all such projects. 

In the meantime, however, I had seen much to 
disgust me with English methods of governing Ire- 
land. Out of my experiences I will relate one or 
two incidents. Although I had in no manner done 
anything illegal I found that I had become a marked 
man in Ireland. I was shadowed from place to 
place and the fact of holding conversations with other 
persons noted. In London I had joined an Amnesty 
Association of which the object was to obtain the 
release of political prisoners. The meetings of this 
Association were always open to the public ; it was 
only by publicity that we could influence public 
opinion. But, in accordance with that wretched 
system which has always prevailed in the dealings 
with Ireland, amongst the comparatively small 
number of our members were two paid agents, whose 



60 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

duty it was to report anything of a suspicious nature 
in our proceedings. These men had nothing to 
report, but their pay would of course have ceased if 
they had acknowledged that fact. Therefore they 
invented stories, and these, the most improbable and 
the most unfounded, were duly transcribed in the 
books at the Home Office. These informers were 
discovered at their work, and my attention was 
called to the fact. At that time I thought the 
matter too contemptible for notice, but the informers 
were expelled. One of them, I was told long after- 
wards, was somewhat roughly handled ; he fell 
upon evil times and died miserably. As a sidelight 
on the traffic in Irish politics I recalled that he was 
one of the stewards at the Parnell meeting in Ber- 
mondsey, and it was he who had disallowed my 
request to sit on the platform. 

My next contact with the British Government of 
that time came about in an unexpected way. One 
of the London newspapers had commissioned me to 
go to Ashanti as war-correspondent in the campaign 
against King Prempeh. After I had been some time 
on the scene I discovered that the War Office had 
interfered to prevent permission being given me to 
accompany the troops, and influence from high 
quarters was used with the directors of newspapers 
which, if acted upon, would have prevented me from 
obtaining any sort of employment in Fleet Street at 
all. At that time I had in no way infringed the law, 
had had no opportunity of defence, and in fact it was 
not till long afterwards that I learnt the inner truth of 
affairs. Multiply such examples of mean tyranny ten 
thousand fold throughout Ireland, and some idea may 
be formed of the abominable system then in vogue. 



AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL 61 

Meanwhile I had published in London a number 
of books. Not one of these was a book of occasion, 
not one dealt with current political events. They 
were works of literature — a novel, studies in con- 
temporary literature with a search for canons of 
criticism, a book of poems. My experiences in this 
sphere were parallel with those I had met with in 
the political world. In place of political parties mad 
with hate, I found literary coteries stiff with pre- 
judice or corrupt with log-rolling, and I found my 
literary work involved in the contempt cast upon 
my political opinions, while much inferior matter — 
I can say it for it was mine though anonymous — 
was highly appreciated. I had found my very educa- 
tion to be a detriment, for it had led me to paths 
remote from the golden route of mediocrity. The 
freedom and candour of vision that I strove to 
defend seemed a crime. What remained for me to 
do ? To fight out these matters ? Certainly I was 
not devoid of combativity, but such a fight involves 
a lifetime, and we mortals have but one life. I 
determined to conquer in another way, and to begin 
by shaking the dust of London from my feet. 

Here I interpose a brief interlude to say that 
happily for my respect for humanity I have come to 
see all these matters in a wider scope. My mis- 
fortunes in London were not due entirely to the fact 
that I was a foreigner. There has been no English- 
man who has ever thought or written with the sole 
regard for truth, but who has been pilloried by the 
orthodox, and derided by the fools. The history of 
criticism in this country is a chapter so extraordinary 
that if we do not call it shameful it is because in the 
retrospect it seems so absurd. 



62 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

When the South African war was being brought 
about I knew something of the inner history of the 
intrigues that made it inevitable. On every ground 
my sympathies were with the Republic, partly no 
doubt because it was a Republic. I do not desire in 
this place to go beyond this necessary mention. 

I fought ... I was elected for Galway, I came to 
fulfil my mandate, I was put on trial, I was sentenced 
to death. Here again, since it touches on Irish affairs, 
I will say that this trial was a blunder on the part 
of the authorities. No one in the world, not even 
my enemies, could believe that I had been guilty of 
treachery to any cause ; and the pompous solemnity 
of High Treason did not blind the world to the facts, 
nor enhance the reputation of England even, in 
countries bound to it by traditional ties. In America 
and in France especially I had friends amongst the 
most illustrious to whom a traitor would have been 
abhorrent, and the sympathy of these nations as 
indeed of all the civilised countries of Europe was 
overwhelmingly in my favour. 

The trial exasperated feeling in Ireland, where it 
was regarded as motived by the Galway election 
rather than by my South African campaign. Nor do 
such punishments help the individual to appreciate 
the glory of England. For the brutal manner in 
which the Fenian prisoners were treated England 
has paid with a vengeance, yes, a vengeance that in 
the hatred of millions of Irish in America has more 
than once baulked her Empire, and even threatened 
its existence. Is the recompense for that to be fully 
found in the savage glutting of revenge ? 

My feeling from first to last towards my enemies 
was contempt. But I will not dwell on that. I have 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 63 

lived to find even that feeling washed away, and to 
find my mind filled with pity towards the man whom 
I regarded as the chief agent of my ruin. 

I have introduced all these matters of the past in 
order to speak still of the future. Of all the missives 
I had received at the time of my trial the one which 
produced the most intense thoughts, as I have said, 
was that which contained the remark that I had 
departed from the course of Evolution. In the 
solitude of my prison cell I sought to pierce to the 
very depths of all my motives, to place myself and 
my acts in true perspective, to know in how far 
false or inferior conceptions had influenced me, and 
to cleanse out of my mind whatever was due to 
ignorance, lower hatred, prejudice. 

The result of this examination has been to lead 
me at times into statements or acts wherein former 
friends have thought they have detected signs of 
weakness or degeneracy. I will only say that it re- 
quires less courage to face the bullets in the field, 
when one has at least the excitement of action, the 
spur of vanity, the big pompom of the world's 
traditional voice, to goad one on ; it is easier to meet 
death in heroism than determinedly to put these 
standards on one side, and say : I will run counter 
even to the hopes of friends if duty points that way. 

" To bear all naked truths 
And to envisage circumstance, all calm, 
That is the top of Sovereignty." 

The philosophical mood in which I had cast myself 
made me see how much of falsity there is in our Irish 
teaching by which we whip up our enthusiasm : 

" On our side is virtue and Erin, 
On theirs is the Saxon and guilt." 



64 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

John Bull on the other hand will exclaim out upon 
this as if it were unthinkable that any superior virtue 
should reside in Erin, and any guilt with him. I will 
say, to make the balance even, that in his dealings 
with Ireland he has been afflicted with something 
deeper than guilt — stupidity. The late Lord Morris, 
who was a Unionist, but also an Irishman and a wit, 
said that the whole problem of Ireland was this : A* 
quick-witted people cannot be bossed by a dull people. ; 
I do not mean to take advantage of this quip to\ 
insinuate that the Irish are intellectually superior J 
to the English ; the English have done marvellous / 
things in science ; in that great domain of intellectu- ! 
ality the Irish have done very little. This demands 
explanation, and I will later return to the point. 

But we must enquire deeper how it came about 
that the quick-witted people ever fell into the hands 
of the so-called dull people, especially after that 
famous start when the quick-witted people were the 
" scholars and saints," and when they " combed and 
washed " the dullards. There must have been a vital 
flaw somewhere. The Irish have been almost too 
quick-witted, or at least too quick in giving expression 
to that wit, and they are too sensitive also. Even in 
our own day we have seen great champions flinging 
epithets at each other like Homeric heroes hurling 
javelins, and howling like the same Homeric heroes 
when each epithet went home. 

That double characteristic has made them, as Mr. 
Tim Healy once remarked, a " fissiparous " people. 
In every crisis in Irish history we have found the in- 
evitable split. Take for contrast a people like the 
Dutch, who are not aggressively witty, nor unduly 
thinskinned. The Dutch held together for three 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 65 

hundred years to sweep away at length the terrible 
Spaniards — they cleared them out even too com- 
pletely, for the blend would have been excellent. 

In searching in Irish questions of any kind we 
invariably come to the same bed-rock, the Church of 
Rome and Luther's Reformation. I have been 
assured by devout Irishmen that the true cause of 
the movement of Luther was that he desired to 
marry a nun. This I do not believe, I say it almost 
with regret, for if I have but a reserved appreciation 
of Luther the philosopher, yet if a man could shake 
the civilised world to its foundations to win the 
woman of his choice my heart would go out to him 
in sheer admiration of the lover. From the same 
source I have heard that the true cause of the French 
Revolution was simply the ambitious intrigues of 
a band of Freemasons in Paris. 

People are found to believe these tales. That 
belief reveals narrowness of mind, and limitation of 
view, the failure to recognise that these events were 
brought about by the great movements of the world, 
by the evolution of things beyond the control of any 
one man, or any association of men. As far back as 
the early days of the fourteenth century the political 
system of the Church was attacked by one no less 
than the author of the great Catholic poem, the"Divina 
Com media " itself. Dante, whose faith seems never 
to have wavered, attributed the decline of the Church 
to the endowments of Constantine. Many others of 
the era of Dante, as well as after the Renaissance, 
quarrelled with the Church not because of its dogmas, 
but for the scandals and corruption that prevailed, 
the rapacity of worldling prelates, overmatched at 
length by the fearful tyranny of the Inquisition itself. 
5 



66 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

In this light Luther appears as a reactionary factor, 
even as in our day men of the type of Captain Craig 
and William Moore are reactionary factors, because 
their aggressive temper and narrow views make for 
strife ; and whenever the flag of party, or the 
symbols of religion, are carried as banners to the 
scene of war, reason vanishes and civilisation blots 
out its lights. 

These and a flood of other thoughts, hailing from 
the same sources, were among the meditations that 
came to me in prison, prompted by my reflections on 
that innocent phrase : The course of evolution. The 
ideas thus gained have abided with me, and have 
grown to strength and influence. They serve to 
make it clear to me for one thing, that at the present 
day amid any recrudescence of religious conflicts, we 
must invoke no pale image of the Williamite wars, 
least of all in the hope of extending the domination 
of the Catholic Church. Rather we must allow the 
causes of these conflicts to die out. We must cease 
even to talk of " toleration " as a virtue ; there is 
something deeper and broader than toleration, and 
that is justice ; and justice is a duty. Let us talk 
not of toleration but of freedom, and let that be 
cheerfully accorded as a right to all. 

Other reflections followed in another realm of 
ideas. The records of wrongs, slights, insults, 
atrocities, and tyrannies may be available to nerve 
one to fight when the tocsin of battle has sounded. 
But in the piping times of peace, amid a new 
generation of men, animated for the most part with 
good intentions, is it worth while to hark back con- 
tinuously to an abominable past ? Henry II is dead, 
rest his soul. Queen Elizabeth is dead ; may the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 67 

daisies blow light on her grave. Even Oliver 
Cromwell is dead ; and whatever we may think 
of him, we may, as the Irish car-driver said 
of one who had paid his legal fare, " l'ave him to 
God." 

I remember the baleful light in my father's eyes 
when he spoke of the cruelties Irishmen endured in 
his day ; but after all neither we nor the Englishmen 
we have to deal with now have seen these cruelties. 
We may have accounts of our own to settle ; well 
let us settle them like men, and if possible like 
reasonable men. 

And further we as Irishmen must put out of our 
heads those silly notions that all our woes have been 
due to English " oppression." We ought to be 
ashamed to utter the word. How if all the stories 
be true of our superior virtues, of our saints and 
scholars, when we owned all Ireland and had the ball 
at our feet, how, in the name of God, did we ever 
become downtrodden and oppressed ? 

The English are hypocrites, we say ; granted, but 
what are we, in our way, with our talk of the woes 
of the past ? We know between ourselves we are 
hypocrites, for in the old days we coined a word for 
it, rameis, a word still useful to hurl at opponents. 
At the beginning of our conflict with England the 
disparity of numbers was not marked, even in regard 
to the total populations. It was all on our side 
with regard to invaders. In 1014 Brian Boru crushed 
the power of the terrible Danes, in 1066 the boasted 
Anglo-Saxons saw their own country wrested from 
them by a band of buccaneers, and they lived to 
claim as their proudest boast some blood affinity 
with the foreign conquerors. And now we talk of 



68 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

the oppressions of these same Anglo-Saxons, or their 
Norman over-lords and we sing : 

" On our side is virtue and Erin, 
On theirs is the Saxon and guilt." 

What virtue ? What is virtue, ye gods ? What is 
the use of talking of virtue, what is the use of count- 
ing our beads, and calling blessings on our heads, if 
we see our country wrested from us, because 
bigotries, jealousies, ungovernable tempers, have 
prevented us from uniting like men in defence ? 
The test of virtue is life ; not quietism, but energy is 
the standard of life ! 

In the United States of America which I had 
visited some thirty years after the close of one of the 
most terrible struggles in the annals of man, I seldom 
heard people speak of the war. If they did, it was 
with the meditation of students of ancient history. 
I met men who had fought with great distinction in 
that gigantic campaign. They were immersing them- 
selves in things of the present, looking forward still 
to the future. Here was a general, the very type 
of a daring cavalry leader ; but that was of the past, 
he was now a builder. Here was one of the rank 
and file, one who had served both in the Navy and 
Army ; he was foreman in a factory. 

Terrible things had happened in that war. Both 
sides had agreed to forget them. It was more im- 
portant to build up their country again. Can we 
not learn a lesson from this for Ireland ? I had 
long since ceased to believe in physical force as a 
remedy for Ireland, not from temperament but from 
a calm survey of facts. I had long since taken with 
a grain of salt the impartiality of Irish chroniclers 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 69 

or the insight of English historians. I recognised in 
both nations great qualities; and these qualities 
though not parallel are complements of each other. 

Also I had seen, even in my own favour — and I 
learned subsequently how much wider than I sup- 
posed it had been — the noble effort of many English- 
men of all ranks and degrees of culture to shake off 
passion and prejudice, and to estimate my own 
doings by standards of higher equity. I asked my- 
self again, does not a duty He on me also to rise above 
prejudice, to recognise how much England — even 
in the midst of wars, some defensive, some piratical — 
has done for civilisation, to appreciate this whole- 
heartedly, to feel pure admiration for what she has 
given to the world of her illustrious men of science, 
her glorious succession of poets ? The fame of 
Milton, Keats, Faraday, and Darwin, seized my soul 
in admiration ; it is true that on reflection I remem- 
bered that this great nation had flung Milton into 
prison, not for his vices but for his virtues ; that it 
had driven Keats to his death in derision ; that 
Faraday had lived on the stipend of the valet of a 
lord ; and that Darwin was the ridicule of his age. 
It would seem that we both have a good deal of lee- 
way to make up ; we can help each other. 

Perhaps the last consideration of this kind is the 
most curious. It is easier to be extreme than to 
weigh all things calmly, and remain just. It is 
easier to be a hero than an honest man. By honest 
man I mean one who is honest in his soul, at all 
times, and in all things. It is easier to be a moderate 
man than an honest man. It does not follow that 
the extreme man is wrong because he is extreme. 
The moderate man, who is moderate simply as a 



70 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

safe guidance to his neuter soul, is the most unin- 
teresting humbug of all. The moderate man hears 
two disputing, one saying 7 and 6 are 13, and the 
other 7 and 6 are 11 ; and then the moderate man 
decides that 7 and 6 are 12, and smiles in his air of 
superior virtue. I have seen the shores of nations 
strewn with the wreckage of the moderate man, the 
man who will not face any issue fairly and squarely, 
who will not shoulder any responsibility if he can 
put it off on another, who temporises, who serves 
the hour, who deceives even his own petty conscience. 
It was said of Cicero, I believe, that his excess was 
moderation. And that reflection makes me the less 
regret his end. 

The purport of all this is, that we should never 
seek refuge in an opinion, or in a line of conduct, 
styled moderate simply because it is the mean 
between two opposed views. Rather let us study 
the problem in itself, get to know the truth of the 
matter, and in freedom of spirit base our decision 
on justice and right. 

How did that affect me ? On my release from 
prison it would have been possible for me to assume 
the championship of the irreconcilable enemies of 
England. It required more strength of mind to say 
to such suggestions, definitely, No. 

I had previously had a conversation on this point 
with Michael Davitt himself. In discussing the ques- 
tion with him I pointed out the futility of the talk of 
physical force, the absence even of the essential 
beginnings of preparation to make such a project 
practicable, and above all the fiasco, in as far as the 
Irish in Ireland and in America were concerned, in 
the South African war. No doubt there were all 



AUTOBIOGEAPHICAL 71 

sorts of reasons which prevented militant Irishmen 
from helping the Boers to maintain their liberties — 
difficulties of recruitment, transport, equipment, and 
all the rest — but the fact remained that not more 
than a dozen young fellows from Ireland direct found 
their way to the fighting fine ; the great physical 
force organisations in America, which were less 
hampered in every way, sent belatedly less than a 
hundred men. To all this Davitt replied : "Yes, but 
physical force is more than that ; physical force is a 
Faith ! " 

Here was a word on which I pondered as seriously 
as on my English correspondent's " Evolution." 
Faith ! Yes, there was something hypnotic in the 
word, something too of unreality ; and not the least 
part of its influence was its unreality. This word, so 
used, seemed to me to reveal a depth of psychology. 
It is the attitude of a man who in this regard moves 
through life as in a dream, a dream of high ideal, if 
you will, but still a dream. Eeason he refuses to 
see. Let the stern movement of fact crash upon his 
understanding, he refuses to be convinced. Is he 
right? 

No. There is a vast movement of the world, a 
universal sweep of things, which determines not 
merely man's fate, the destiny of nations, but the 
whole apparition of the times to come. We must 
be in accord with it, or we become swallowed up. 
Fight against it, and we are merely false shoots. 
Nor can we fend of! the inevitable by giving exalted 
names, or calling our conceptions great ideals. Build 
in Nature, trust in Nature, abide in Nature. . . . 
Names. Names ! Do not let us be hypnotised by 
names. You cannot cure a man of stone in the 



72 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

bladder by calling him Lord Chancellor, or even 
King of Kings, nor slacken the ravages of phthisis by 
extolling the virtue of the subject. The dreams of 
Israel, the stubborn traditions of Egypt, have been 
swept away. Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what 
are they ? Byron exclaims. They have been 
weighed in the balance of forces that move around 
us, but which are for ever telling us their truths in 
those laws of Nature which it is the function of 
science to make clear. And is Ireland not to be 
weighed in the balance ? Is England not to be tried 
in the fire ? Yes, for both these countries a critical 
time has come. Ireland has at best a hard path to 
climb. Signs are not wanting, as I heard a French 
scientist remark — for in his politeness he would not 
say that England was on the down grade — but that, 
one feels that the curve of England's greatness has 
passed its culminating point. These countries may 
save each other if they come to terms, and get to- 
gether for mutual support. This in effect was the 
reply to my meditations to Davitt's plea of Faith. 

The upshot of these thoughts brought into the light 
of common day has a tame and humdrum aspect. 
I determined after my release that I would eventually 
seek re-election to Parliament. Further, since con- 
sistently with Ireland's right and just demands, I 
hoped for an ultimate conciliation, it seemed to me 
useless to keep alive matters of friction which added 
no strength to Ireland. The carrying out of my 
programme was delayed by the manner of my re- 
lease which exhibited again the mean and petty 
character of transaction which has so often irritated 
the Irish people and destroyed the good feeling that 
should be produced by " concessions." I was re- 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 73 

leased, but I remained deprived of civil rights, and 
this made my situation so difficult that it required 
at times all my resolution to keep in the path I had 
traced, and to resist being swept away by feelings. 

I will not now speak of the difficulties which I had 
to overcome. I was elected by the people of West 
Clare, in my father's county, and I have now reached 
the point, where I can survey the actual situation, 
and cast forward my thought towards the shaping 
of the future. 



CHAPTER III 

ACTUAL CONDITIONS 

Ireland had been likened to Poland. Lest the 
comparison should shock any sensitive reader, I will 
hasten to explain that my authority is no less than 
the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain himself, who speak- 
ing at West Islington on the 17th June, 1885, said : 

I do not believe that the great majority of 
Englishmen have the slightest conception of the 
system under which this free nation attempts 
to rule a sister country. It is a system which is 
founded on the bayonets of 30,000 soldiers en- 
camped permanently as in a hostile country. It 
is a system as completely centralised and bureau- 
cratic as that with which Russia governs Poland, 
or as that which was common in Venice under 
Austrian rule. 

I say the time has come to reform altogether 
the absurd and irritating anachronism which is 
known as Dublin Castle, to sweep away alto- 
gether these alien boards of foreign officials, and 
to substitute for them a genuine Irish Adminis- 
tration for purely Irish business. 

These utterances were not the offspring of " green 
and salad days," they expressed the considered 
opinion of a statesman in the prime of his powers. 

74 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 75 

Certainly I have no desire to insist on the force of 
such a statement, but it is well to have the Russian 
model in view in considering the mechanism of the 
Government of Ireland. The Russian Constitution 
is said to be an autocracy, tempered by assassination. 
The Irish system, a pale copy of Russia, is a des- 
potism veiled by hypocrisies. But before examining 
this subject more closely, let us consider what a 
Government ought to be for Ireland, composed 
mainly of agricultural people forming a small and 
compact community. The question of defence is 
immediately presented. That question is of prime 
importance for England, but during long periods of 
Irish history, though doubtless not so at present, it 
has had an ironical aspect ; for the power against 
which Irishmen wished to be protected was that of 
England itself. At times they have hailed the pros- 
pect of a foreign invasion as a godsend. It was the 
French who were to be the deliverers as in the old 
song, " Shan van Vocht." The feeling still survives 
in parts of Ireland though it has become adapted to 
the situation. 

Not long before the outbreak of the war I saw 
invocations to the Germans to come over and help 
us. After the outbreak of the war there became 
evident in some quarters a pro-German feeling, 
especially amongst those unacquainted with German 
methods and German rule. Yet no country more 
than Ireland would have suffered in the eventual 
downfall. It is well to recognise clearly that in the 
event of an attack by a foreign foe it will always be 
policy, if nothing higher, to fight if not for England 
as England, still in the defence of the whole com- 
munity. That has been shown to be the attitude 



76 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

of the great majority of Irishmen, but we may well 
consider this aspect of the matter for a moment. 

Ireland could not really be stirred to Pan-Teutonism, 
but throughout a considerable section of the people 
the feeling of Anti-Unionism, brought to a crisis by 
the war, found expression in pro-German sentiments. 
The explanation of this was given to me in a letter I 
received from an unlettered but intelligent countryman 
who pointed out that not only the German Govern- 
ment but even the English Government was remote 
from the lives of the people, to whom the name of 
England simply called up the memories of a hundred 
years of bitter struggle, the spectacles of famine, 
emigration, evictions, and the figures of police and 
army officers crushing the peasants at the behest of 
iron English laws. Home Rule had been granted, 
" with a string to it," as the people expressed it ; at 
the best Home Rule still remained but a tentative 
promise. Suppose, for example, that Germany were 
successful in the present war and if they promised a 
measure of local government to Belgium, could the 
Belgians be expected, turning round from one day 
to another, to sing, " Deutschland, Deutschland 
iiber alles " ? The English reader will revolt at the 
comparison and cry out, We are not Germans, and 
Ireland is not Belgium ; but his very indignation 
may show how difficult it is to look at a subject from 
any point of view but one's own. The Irish peasant 
and the Irish artisan see the question from their 
particular standpoint. 

Men whose horizon is wider, men who weigh in their 
minds a greater number of factors, arrive at con- 
clusions which they believe to be wise, and they are 
astonished at the lack of common sense of those who 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 77 

fail to agree with them. I have described the potent 
effect on my mind of the word " Evolution," and of 
the long train of thought to which it led ; but what 
is Evolution to the hard-handed, sore-tried tiller of 
the soil % He knows nothing of Evolution ; he 
knows the facts and the stories that have built up 
his opinions or his prejudices, and responding to 
the instinctive abhorrence of tyranny he vaunts his 
hate upon the nearest symbol of oppression. The 
situation in Ireland at the beginning of the war was 
not smooth, and it still remains difficult. Had there 
been no Home Rule Act, had a regime of coercion 
been in force, there would have been happenings 
serious for the safety of Great Britain. And the 
same, as I know, is true, with little alteration of 
terms, for South Africa. 

Most of the leaders of public opinion in Ireland 
kept their heads, but their hold on the young men 
was found to have weakened. Thousands of these 
emigrated to America, and some of the leaders called 
them cowards. I do not think that term was justified, 
though I believe the chief reason of the emigration 
was that these young men began to feel as intolerable 
the pressure brought to bear on them to join the 
Army. A soldier, a man who took " the Saxon 
shilling," had always been looked upon with con- 
tempt by Nationalists, although these same Irishmen, 
still preserving their opinion for the individual, 
seemed proud to hear of the bravery of Irish troops. 

Irish meetings had always ended with the singing 
of " God Save Ireland." In the new regime, so 
suddenly inaugurated, Irishmen found that their old 
patriotic choruses were banished, their old heroes, 
from Wolfe Tone downward, were taboo, while the 



78 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

proceedings were now sanctified by a song which 
they had never heard before except from the lips of 
their enemies — " God Save the King " ; but on the 
platform in this new era, mingling with their well- 
known leaders and singing this hymn with gusto, 
they beheld the same enemies of old. And when 
they were invited to join an Irish Brigade to fight at 
the Front they were assured that these same gallant 
gentlemen would lead them. To face all this steadily 
required cooler heads and more statesmanlike qualities 
than Nature has given to the honest Irish countryman. 
But it was not in the country only, but rather 
in Dublin that this difficulty was severely felt. 
The orthodox Nationalist papers, the " Freeman's 
Journal/' and the " Independent " were strongly in 
favour of Great Britain ; but the papers that He on 
the fringe of Nationalism, or which strike, as they 
maintain, a deeper and truer note than the Irish 
Parliamentary Party, these papers were, if not pro- 
German, at least anti-recruiting. " Sinn Fein/' " The 
Irish Worker/' " The Irish Volunteer/' " Irish Free- 
dom," "Eire" (Ireland), and "The Leader" were 
either suppressed or warned by the Government. 
The " Gaelic American," the organ of the physical- 
force men in America, and the " Irish World," which 
up to the war had steadfastly advocated the policy 
of Mr. Redmond, published articles of such a character 
that the Government prohibited their circulation in 
Ireland. Most of the younger generation of poets, 
great inspirators, declared for advanced Nationalism. 
Such conflicts are deeply regrettable ; on whom 
should rest the blame ? Partly on ourselves, I 
answer, and partly on the British Government. The 
handling of Ireland has shown all the merciful dis- 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 79 

pensations and also all the blunders of the tact of 
weak men. The suppression of the Nationalist papers 
was a mistake ; it only enforced the argument of 
those who cried, We don't want protection except 
from the English Government ; it strengthened the 
hands of those who in America attempted to turn the 
tide of opinion against Great Britain. In a great 
crisis, moreover — the very destiny of England as well 
as of Ireland being at stake — greater concession should 
have been made to that form of National sentiment, 
or even sensibility, that I have indicated. The 
promise of Home Rule was not sufficient, and the 
manner of its announcement was not gracious. I 
am reminded here of a saying of Frederick III of 
Germany who, when the German Empire was es- 
tablished, said of the statesmen, These men have no 
Aufschwung (afflatus) ; they hand over the German 
Crown as if they had taken it from a pawnbroker's 
shop wrapped in an old newspaper. 

But this referred only to the manner of presenta- 
tion ; the reality was there. With regard to the 
Home Rule Act I have asked myself often if ever the 
proposed reality, with its " strings," will prove to be 
worth taking, that is to say, whether it will be an 
improvement on the present condition — a Home Rule 
Act over which hangs the shadow of Dismemberment 
of Ireland, an Act which will allow a part of Ireland 
to carry on a local business with insufficient funds, 
reserving to the Parliament at Westminster, where 
the Irish representation will be greatly reduced, the 
control of matters that are vital. 

Not to delay further on this aspect of the matter, I 
will say sincerely, that there is danger here, and 
indeed in South Africa, for all these questions are 



80 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

linked together, and the mistake has occurred not 
in giving authority to the people too hastily or too 
largely, but in not having given it, once and for all, so 
fully and in such a manner of generosity, as to wash 
away the traces of past hatreds in the sweet waters 
of alliance. The problem is not disposed of for either 
country, for no solution can be final that seeks to 
compress even the style of government into a Pro- 
crustean bed of mediaeval form which cramps and 
cripples England herself. 

The difficulties in the way will be seen in the 
chapter on Parliament. At this point I will repeat 
that I for one desire to see eventually the best under- 
standing possible between England and Ireland, but 
I do not believe that the best way is to ask Irishmen 
to turn their backs on their national heroes, to discard 
those ideals which have been century-long the in- 
spiration of their race. 

Regarding the question of internal administration, 
we find Ireland overrun with bureaucrats, officials of 
all kinds, some of them no doubt excellent, but all 
non-producers. If this spectacle be once clearly and 
graphically represented in the mind, with all that it 
means, the image of Russia seems to fade, and that 
of China takes its place. Ireland is choked by 
mandarins. Let us probe this matter a little. Let 
us look at the question philosophically, for that word 
should not imply mere abstraction, it should indicate 
rather the necessity of delving to a deep base in 
order to build up consecutively and consistently a 
body of thought. 

Man's contest is with Nature. That is to say, the 
means of subsistence of the individual man, as well 
as of the nation depend on the natural resources that 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 81 

lie about him, and the skill and perseverance with 
which he avails himself of the products available. 
In the old days when the tribes were hunters the 
family dinner depended on the alertness of the man, 
his speed, his fine adjustment of hand and eye. 
Nowadays agriculturists require a knowledge of the 
best means of cultivating the ground, the best seeds 
to sow, and the best conditions for a successful 
harvest. Their lives seem more humdrum at first 
sight than that of the hunters, but already the ele- 
ment of thought is becoming more serious ; and it 
is that which in the long run tells in the upbuilding 
of nations. A good farmer will obtain far more from 
a field than a bad farmer ; and in our own times, 
after thousands of years of tilling the soil, we find that 
in countries where the land is scanty in proportion 
to population — as in France — methods of inten- 
sive culture are being studied more closely than 
ever and with greater success. When we reach this 
stage, however, we are already launched into 
science. 

Science is not distinct from common sense ; it 
consists in giving to common sense greater accuracy, 
wider range, illumination. Thus the necessities of 
transport in commerce have gradually brought about 
the study of the making of roads and bridges, and 
finally the invention of the railway. The need of 
communication has given us the services of the post 
and telegraph. I do not mean that scientific dis- 
coveries and inventions have always arisen directly 
in response to some national want. Science itself 
comes to have a realm, which is often believed to be 
divorced from such considerations ; but as science is 
really the questioning of nature and interpretation 
6 



82 IBELAND: VITAL HOUR 

of natural phenomena, it is not possible to make any 
discovery in that realm that will not eventually 
redound in importance to practical life. The re- 
searches which eventually led to the electric telegraph 
and to wireless telegraphy were at one time scoffed 
at as frivolous by so-called " practical " men. Yet 
if the whole matter be clearly apprehended it will be 
seen that the history of the progress of civilisation 
has been parallel with that of the history of science. 
Science is the woof of civilisation ; each nation 
supplies its own patterns in the variegated forms of 
institutions, customs, and manners. 

In all this, however, it becomes evident that the 
wealth of nations cannot be extended beyond the 
possibility of natural resources. The natural re- 
sources may be developed, as, for instance, by 
afforestation, by improving fisheries, by fertilising 
the soil. Or if a nation be great in manufactures it 
may profit by the natural resources of others. Cer- 
tainly it happens luckily for us that the natural 
resources of the globe are enormously in excess of 
what is required to support the present population ; 
our miseries on that score are, in great part, due to 
the bad management. 

But how does this apply to Ireland ? Simply, in 
this way, that by virtue of her situation and the 
character of her resources, and considering the 
energy, and, speaking generally, the law-abiding and 
helpful character of the inhabitants, Ireland should 
be governed with an administration not as burden- 
some by one-tenth as that which she supports. A 
country fertile, but not well endowed with minerals, 
an active, laborious population living by agriculture, 
and above that an army of non-producers, all the 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 83 

administration of the land, the administration of 
other industries, the administration of the law with- 
out its thousand and one parasites, the army of the 
executive employed in coercing people who generally 
speaking are in no need of coercing : that is what we 
behold ; then apart from these there is the adminis- 
tration of education and that of religion both desired 
by the people, but both supported eventually by the 
sweat of the brow of the labourer. This system of 
over-governance, this army of functionaries, living 
upon and crushing down the man who is the type 
and the strength of the nation; this is bad every- 
where in Europe, but in Ireland the evil is intensified 
by reason of the alien origin of the officials. 

I do not mean to use the word alien here in an 
offensive sense. The official may be an Englishman, 
endued with a monumental ignorance of Ireland, or 
he may be an Irishman of the " Ascendancy " class, 
and then his hatred of the aspirations of the people 
is active. Few Englishmen, even amongst the 
politicians, know how Ireland is governed. I re- 
member once hearing Mr. Birrell in the House of 
Commons debating an Irish question of some im- 
portance. At a certain moment he observed that 
nearly all the Liberal members as well as the Tory 
side of the House had departed. Not even the lively 
play of the Chief Secretary's humour had been suffi- 
cient to detain them. " Look there," he exclaimed, 
" how is it possible for such people ever to know any- 
thing of Ireland ? Their ignorance is excusable only 
because it seems to be incurable ! " 

The Government of Ireland is epitomised in the 
Castle System. The word Castle, Castle, Castle, 
recurs again and again in Irish history like the 



84 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

leit-motif of a Wagnerian opera. 1 The establishment 
of the Castle, the advance of its power, the modern 
assaults upon its walls, which have left it still intact ; 
that is the English aspect of the history of Ireland. 
The Castle system is admirable as a type of central- 
ised government, one that might well have been 
incorporated into the national life of Ireland, but 
for that one fatal flaw of its alien origin. Ireland's 
little king, the Viceroy, or Lord-Lieutenant is, 
theoretically, the dispenser of light and force in 
Ireland. His Chief Secretary sits in the Parliament 
at Westminster. Various Boards in which the 
principal offices are filled by the nomination of the 
British Government constitute the real authority in 
Ireland. The Lord-Lieutenant, once a man whose 
temperament and policy weighed on the destinies 
of the people, has gradually dwindled in authority 
and even in pomp. He seems rarely chosen for any 
shining quality, either of heart or head, and the 
choice has often been unfortunate. Even on occa- 
sions when some astute Prime Minister has thought 
to please the Irish by the gift of a convivial Viceroy, 
no great success has attended the venture, for no 
Viceroy nurtured on alien soil could hold a candle 
to the natives in that sport. Frankly, I would like 
to see the office abolished, but frankly, also, I see no 
prospect of that end. That fidelity which the Irish 
of old used to show towards their impossible Chiefs 
seems to be now esteemed a special virtue when 

1 The Government of Ireland mainly consists of a series of Bureaus, 
each independent of the other, and most of them irresponsible to 
Parliament. There are, in all, some sixty-seven Boards, Depart- 
ments, and Offices : in fact, Ireland, as has been said, has " enough 
Boards to make her coffin." 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 85 

manifested towards those who have usurped their 
power, and who have invaded us with tamer vices 
and less showy virtues. 

For the office of Chief Secretary of Ireland I used 
to have a genuine respect. I regarded the represen- 
tative as the veritable ruler of Ireland, but that was 
before I had been brought into close contact with 
the working of the machine, before I had learned that 
nothing is more deceptive than the outward appear- 
ance of the British Constitution. I have seen in the 
House of Commons one of the ablest and most 
sympathetic Chief Secretaries we have had, Mr. 
Birrell, I have seen him pass Bills which also in very 
naivete at one time I believed to be his. But by 
dint of asking innumerable questions on the floor of 
the House and receiving replies, almost invariably 
of a non-possumus or procrastinating character, and 
which in their interesting element of uncertainty 
seemed to be as new to the Chief Secretary as to 
myself, I have revised my notion of the value of that 
dignity. The Lord-Lieutenants might be likened to 
the formal " God-Save- the-King " played at a banquet, 
and the Chief Secretary to the varied fantasias that 
enliven the repast ; the solid dish, the real business, 
that is found in the permanent officials. 1 

1 Lord Dunraven, who is well versed in Irish affairs, has often 
ridiculed the Castle system : In his book ; " The Outlook in Ireland," 
he says : 

The present system is peculiar, if not unique. It consists 
of a Lord Lieutenant and General Governor, who is theoretically 
supreme, but who has practically no power whatever except 
over the police and the administration of justice. He wields 
the policeman's baton, and very little else. Powerful to punish 
the people, he is powerless to help, assist, lead, or encourage 
them. He is assisted by his Chief Secretary, who represents 
him in Parliament. The Chief Secretary has control over some 



86 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

No doubt that is the case with most Government 
departments, for it requires a man of exceptional 
authority, determination, and staying power, to 
break the force of inertia and give to the work of the 
department anything really deep and permanent of 
himself. The Government of a country becomes 
stereotyped, and this, though at first a factor of con- 
servation and security, becomes finally a cause of 
decay. And Ireland which has not yet half begun 
to have her chance in the modern world is already 
suffering from the " superannuation of sunk realms." 

Let us see how this applies to any particular 
Board. That with which I have had most frequent 
business is the Congested Districts Board. It was 
brought into operation in its present form by the 
Land Act of 1909, and its chief function was that of 
obtaining land for small farmers, the rateable value 
of whose holdings did not exceed £10 per annum. 
In order to obtain the land it was necessary to pur- 
chase it from the great landlords, and in the event 
of their being unwilling to sell provision was made in 
the Act whereby these recalcitrant landlords could be 
expropriated at an equitable price. Unfortunately 
it was so arranged that it was better for a landlord to 

Departments, over other Departments he has partial control ; 
and over others again he exercises no control at all. 
Here is a quotation from another source : 

The Castle has six great officers of state ; five are Protestants, 
one is a Catholic. Of sixteen judges of the Superior Courts 
thirteen are Protestants. Of twenty-one County Court judges 
fifteen are Protestants. There were twenty-one Inspectors in 
August last employed by the Estates Commissioners at salaries 
of £800 a year each ; every one was a Protestant. The Land 
Commission has six commissioners ; three are Catholics in a 
country where the Catholics are seventy per cent, of the inhabi- 
tants. The Privy Councillors are almost exclusively Protestants. 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 87 

be dealt with by compulsion than in the course of a 
sale by mutual agreement. If his land were taken 
" compulsorily " he got cash, whereas otherwise he 
got part in stock ; and Irish stock, though ostensibly 
guaranteed by the British Government, is not taken 
at its face value. 

In one small estate there had been trouble between 
the tenants and a farmer who purchased " over their 
heads." The farmer had been fired at — over his 
head, for the shot went through his hat. A police 
hut was established on the spot and extra police 
provided. Here was a case for the Congested Dis- 
tricts Board to display its usefulness, for by the 
purchase of the estate the whole difficulty could be 
settled, the bad blood that had been engendered 
might be forgotten, the expense of the extra police 
would be removed, and all the tenants would enter 
into possession of their holdings and settle down to 
productive toil. 

The settlement of this dispute, however, brought 
on the shoulders of all concerned, landlord, tenants, 
myself, the Congested Districts Board, the Chief 
Secretary, years of work, yes, literally, work extend- 
ing over years, and involving I know not how many 
questions asked in Parliament. Not being a business 
man, nor a man taught to reverence the sanctity of 
red tape, I used to ask : "Is this an example of that 
wondrous wisdom of British Statesmanship, or 
greater, British Administration that we are taught 
to worship as one of the gifts of the Deity, and — in its 
selective bestowal — as one of the inscrutable mysteries 
of nature ? " 

Ye gods ! Over a hundred years, in a nation that 
Englishmen have been generally taught to regard 



88 IEELAND: VITAL HOUK 

as impractical and degenerate, a little man arose — 
one of the least of their men, by the same standard, 
for he had been born neither to title nor wealth — 
and in one day, as often when he was not making 
war, he disposed of more real valid business, business 
that redounded to the life and activity of the nation, 
more in four hours than the Congested Districts 
Board, as far as I knew it, got through in four years. 
That little man was called Napoleon Bonaparte. 
Why could not Mr. Birrell do as much ? I can 
imagine loud cries sent up, deriding the absurdity 
of the comparison. 

But why absurd ? Have we not been told that 
we are the great Imperial people ; that we think 
Imperially ? Then why in the name of Heaven, do 
we so often act in Parliament like a pack of gossiping 
women ? Why is the comparison between Mr. 
Birrell and Napoleon Bonaparte absurd ? Is he not 
one of the greatest in this greatest of Empires ? Yes, 
but Napoleon Bonaparte had the power and oppor- 
tunity. Then if it be good for a country that a 
capable man may have power and opportunity, then 
again why had Mr. Birrell not power and oppor- 
tunity ? There must be some fault somewhere. 
Nothing can persuade me that we have, " with our 
marvellous British common-sense," evolved the best 
possible system, when I see in Parliament so many 
activities, so many good intentions, so much desire 
for efficiency, rendered nugatory and helpless. 

I have now been in Parliament several years, I 
know my Constituency, at least, fairly ; I see a 
hundred ways in which I could facilitate matters ; I 
have looked into various projects for reproductive 
works ; yet what have I been able to accomplish ? 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 89 

All this business that the full powers of the Congested 
Districts Board with their army of functionaries has 
blundered on for years, I, or anyone else in my 
position, with a little energy and common-sense could 
have disposed of in as many days. I might make 
mistakes. Yes, but I would get the business done. 
And have they made no mistakes ? 

I dwell for a moment on these matters, for though 
local they have only to be multiplied by the number 
of constituencies in Ireland, and they become 
National. Shortly after the Land Act of 1909 became 
the law of the land I met a tenant farmer on one of 
the estates. He was typical of a class ; a middle- 
aged, weather-beaten, hard-working, but withal a 
jovial man. He was full of hope. He wanted to get 
to work. He wanted in the full prime of his energy 
to build up a home for his family. He was the very 
kind of man I desired to assist. Considerable time 
elapsed before the estate was reached. At last it 
was announced that the estate would be dealt with. 
There was no small anxiety locally. Ye gods and 
little fishes, no wonder that every tenant farmer in 
Ireland is a sort of agricultural lawyer. Each suc- 
cessive stage of the cumbrous machinery hangs over 
the whole community with the heaviness of a long- 
drawn mediaeval play. From time to time I heard 
from my friend. I could always tell what was in his 
letters before I opened them, for I always expected 
the most disappointing account. He used to write 
to urge me to give the thing a push, and he often 
used a phrase, " Desperate diseases need poisonous 
remedies ! " Poor man, time spread out so long 
that the intervals became distant enough to allow 
him to forget that he had used the phrase before. I 



90 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

remembered it because it struck me as quaint, es- 
pecially as I could imagine bis accent in uttering it, 
and I tbougbt it a little paradoxical tbat be could 
apply sucb a term as desperate to tbe movements of 
an Irisb Board. From time to time I beard tbat tbe 
poor man bad indulged a bttle too freely in stimu- 
lants. I met bim after a recovery from a bout, tbe 
hopeful middle-aged man bad grown into an apa- 
thetic old man. A relative of bis on wbom be bad 
built bad emigrated. He bimself bad ceased even to 
denounce tbe Board ! 

Tbe really terrible sigbt to bebold in Ireland is, 
at any street corner in an Irisb country town, a group 
of young men, of good natural pbysique, intelbgent 
also, banging round in Hstlessness, too depressed even 
to look for illicit excitements. It may be said tbat 
is tbe national misfortune of tbe country. Absurd ! 
Ireland properly bandied could be made to support 
in comfort double tbe population tbat now subsists 
in misery. 

Wbat vitabty too in tbese people ! I beg to offer 
two examples. Tbey are not of tbe stage type of 
Irishman and Irishwoman, nor even of tbat kind wbom 
sympathetic English people find when they come over 
and speak of the " dear interesting characters." 

On one occasion I desired to visit a constituent at 
some distance from Kilrush, and I hired a side car. 
The day was bitterly cold. The whole county seemed 
to be a field of ice, and over this bleak plain tbe 
Atlantic winds blew fiercely. I was wearing a 
Melton overcoat, one that had been sufficient for all 
needs in England. A friend of mine, seeing me 
about to start, came forward with that ready friend- 
liness of the Irish and offered me an Irish frieze over- 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 91 

coat, which I put over the Melton. My driver 
appeared and we started. He had no overcoat at 
all. His jacket was not buttoned in front. He 
wore a cotton shirt. We bowled along in the icy 
wind, and in spite of my two overcoats I was chilled. 

" A bit warm," cried my driver cheerily. I 
thought he was " pulling my leg," or " codding " 
me, as he would express it in his vernacular. I 
looked at him. His cheeks were glowing and red. 
Struck with admiration, seized with the conviction 
that such a people could conquer the world, I entered 
into conversation with him. No, he would not stay 
in Ireland. There was nothing doing. He had a 
friend in the States. — Every man, woman, and child 
in Ireland has a relative, near or distant, or a friend 
in America. — He was scraping together every penny he 
could get to pay half his passage to the land of the 
Stars and Stripes. His friend who was beginning to do 
well would pay the other half. He lived for nothing 
else than to get away from Ireland. The young men 
depart in shoals, the active, the enduring, the bold. 

My next example is drawn from another sex and 
from another class of society. Once at a small race 
meeting in Ireland, where by the way one of the 
races was won by an Old-age pensioner riding his 
own horse — these things happen only in Ireland — I 
observed that a young lady of my acquaintance had 
entered a horse. I asked her if she kept him en- 
tirely for racing purposes. " Oh, no," she replied, 
" we drive him in the trap, and faith, indeed we 
sometimes put him in the plough ! " 

The race for which this versatile animal ran was 
full of surprises and uncertainties, and these were 
added to by the fact that the people so crowded on 



92 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the course that the appearance was that of a public 
meeting rather than of a racing event. The horses 
threaded their way amocgst the people, sometimes 
being brought to a standstill, and sometimes knock- 
ing down a man who knocked down his neighbour, 
and so on, until half a dozen were stretched on the 
ground. The course was very small and with sharp 
angles, and this circumstance proved fatal to the 
chances of the gallant steed in question, for at one 
point where he looked like winning he turned so 
dexterously and quickly into the straight that his 
jockey, unable to adapt himself to the crisis, con- 
tinued in his previous direction, and hurtling through 
the air in a graceful parabola fell at length on the 
broad of his back. 

For a moment I held my breath, but my young 
lady friend laughed in rippling gaiety. " He'll pre- 
tend he's hurt," she said, " and hell wait till the 
ambulance comes round, but he knows perfectly well 
what is going on." 

All of which proved to be true. 

" Oh, what a race ! " I exclaimed again. " Here 
is a girl beautiful as Hebe. Does she faint at a cut 
finger, or simper over sentimental woes ? No, she 
laughs at an accident that might have killed a town- 
bred youth, but which hardly ruffles this strong Clare 
boy. Is not this the right development? Is not here a 
people that might aspire to the kingdom of earth % " 

I can hear someone object that it is easy to be 
callous and hard of heart. But that is not the true 
meaning of the story. The young lady comes from 
a family noted for kindness and generosity. One 
instance will suffice. She told me that a poor neigh- 
bour had come to borrow a tree from her father. 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 93 

" Borrow a tree ? " I enquired. 

" Oh, yes/' she said laughing. " They often do. 
They borrow the tree, but we never get it back, they 
use it for firewood ; and in that way we have parted 
with a good many of our trees ! " 

Yet all the energy and force is being constantly 
drained out of the country. At some little wayside 
station such a sight as the following is common : 
A crowd has collected on the platform. The train 
steams sharply up, half an hour late. The third- 
class carriages are already filled with young men and 
young women. At the station these are joined by 
a crowd of those who have been waiting. It is the 
train which takes them on the first stage to Queens- 
town, it is the Emigration train. That is a word big 
with meaning in the lives of all. The young men 
and women are full of hope, but they may never 
come back to their Motherland. The old men and 
the old women will never see their children again 
when once that train steams out of the station. Cries 
and lamentations fill the air, wailings, heartrending 
sobs. And as the train slowly moves some of the 
young women who have been standing on the plat- 
form saying their good-byes seem suddenly stricken 
by the immediate sense of loss. Frantically they 
rush after the train, crying, screaming ; and when 
the train has gone they stand the picture of grief, 
or send up their voices to the air in keening, while 
they wave and shake the arms and hands as if they 
were ringing bells. 1 

1 In a brochure entitled : " A Plea for Home Rule," Mr. James 
O'Connor, K.C., now Solicitor-General for Ireland, gives some im- 
pressive figures : 

That Ireland has not prospered during the last century goes 



94 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

I have seen some heart-shaking scenes in various 

without saying. The population was 8,175,124 in 1841. It is 
now 4,378,568. During the same period the population of Eng- 
land increased from 16,038,000 to 30,811,420. The acreage under 
tillage has diminished from 5,065,657 acres in 1887 to 4,650,397 
acres in 1907. Population going down, the cost of running the 
country has steadily gone up. The cost of Dublin Castle in- 
creased between 1893 and 1907 from £862,438 to £1,035,500. 
Ireland has a population of 4,378,568 ; Scotland a population of 
4,776,063. The cost of the Constabulary in Ireland (where 
indictable offences were 9,465 in 1906) is £1,484,548 per annum ; 
in Scotland (where the indictable offences numbered 22,476 in 
1906) the cost of the police was £571,587. And whereas Ireland 
spends £1,391,721 on education, Scotland spends £2,254,484. 

The total cost of legal machinery in Ireland, not including the 

cost of lunatic asylums, reformatories, and such other adjuncts, 

is £2,137,830 ; for Scotland it is £976,799. 

Mr. John Redmond, M.P. speaking in London of the 1st of March 

1912, drew a comparison between the conditions of administration in 

Ireland and in Scotland : 

Ireland and Scotland had similar populations ; yet the customs 
in Scotland yielded £539,000 more than in Ireland, the Excise 
£1,470,000 more, Estate Duties £1,417,000 more, Stamps £316,000 
more, and the Income Tax £3,420,000 more. 

There were some peculiar features about the Income Tax. 
Schedule D, that was trades and professions, yielded in Ireland 
£335,000 and in Scotland £1,181,000 ; yet Schedule E, that was 
public offices and official salaries, yielded in Ireland £41,000 and 
in Scotland only £13,000. 

Wages in Ireland were 7s. or 8s. a week lower than in Scot- 
land or England. 

In Ireland there were 3,401 miles of railway, with gross takings 
of £4,474,000 while in Scotland, with 7,781 miles of railway, the 
gross takings were £13,104,000. 

The property assessed to Income Tax in the last twenty years 
increased, in England by £275,000,000, in Scotland by £28,000,000, 
and in Ireland by some £1,500,000. 

The condition of the people working on the land in Ireland 
was improving rapidly, yet half of all the holdings in Ireland 
were under £10 valuation, while 134,182 were under £4 valuation, 
which meant that half the agricultural holders in Ireland were 
living on uneconomic holdings — holdings which could not provide 
a decent living. 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 95 

climes, but I have known few that have made a 
greater impression on me than my first sight of such 
a leave-taking. Certainly on reflection I find some 
considerations that mitigate the tragedy of it. In 
the first place the Irishwomen of old practised keen- 
ing as one of the arts. At an Irish funeral the dirge 
of lamentation of the old women sounds like all 
that one might imagine of the chorus of an Aeschylean 
tragedy. This wondrous power of keening has over- 
flowed into Irish poetry, and has even weakened the 
note of national life. 

Then again the young people have hardly been a 
day on board the boat before the natural Irish 
joviality and the immense hope reaching out to a 
new life, tell their tale, and good spirits prevail. 
But for the old people left behind there is too often 
loneliness, misery, despair. Ireland has given mil- 
lions to America, to Australia, to South Africa ; but 
the race is fertile and under improved conditions the 
population would soon mount as high as in its best 
days. 

It has been said of late that the spirit of the 
people has changed, and that there is no longer any 
real interest in Home Rule or in the broader question 
of Nationalism, and that if it were not for the 
agitators Ireland would settle down contentedly into 
the position of a province of Great Britain. Such 
opinions could result only from superficial observa- 
tion, or from a desire to deceive. 

I believe it to be true that some of the astutest 
leaders of the Parnell days considered that although 
Home Rule was the highest ideal, yet the people 
required a motive power in more solid and tangible 
interests. Hence the advantage of coupling the 



96 IEELAND : VITAL HOUR 

land campaign with the fight for Home Rule. But 
then it may be said, now that the land question is 
settled, at least in principle, and in a few years will 
be entirely settled in fact, will not the Nationalist 
ideal disappear ? I think not. The national ideal 
is a part of the very mode of thinking of the 
people. 

Moreover the difficulties will not have vanished 
even with the settlement of the land question. The 
tenant farmers were sustained in the fight by the 
help of the townspeople. But the townspeople them- 
selves have now waked to the fact that they too 
have a similar grievance, and the Town Tenants' 
League has been formed with branches in most of 
the towns of Ireland, to secure fair rent, fixity of 
tenure, and compensation for improvements. Is 
this an artificial movement suggested by and founded 
on that of the agricultural tenants ? It will be 
easy to judge when a few relevant facts are given. 
In my own constituency only about 2 per cent, of 
the people live in houses of which they are the 
owners. Now is it possible to expect these people 
to take a pride in their houses, to improve them, to 
embellish them, when by so doing they would only 
put upon themselves an increased burden of rent ? 
In the North of Ireland they speak of a Protestant- 
looking house, meaning thereby a neat and trim 
house, with a little flower-garden in front, or at any 
rate with some flower-pots in the window-sill. Yes, 
but the occupiers of these houses own these houses, 
or they have fair rent, and fixity of tenure. 

In the South of Ireland it is, or has been hitherto, 
distressingly rare to find these attractive adornments 
to a dwelling. But those who are tempted to pass 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 97 

hasty judgments should remember that human 
nature is to a considerable extent moulded by its 
conditions. In the new labourers' cottages in which 
a good deal of accommodation is supplied in a small 
space, and in which the rents are low and the tenure 
well secured, there is already a beginning of adorn- 
ment. I remember a word of Mr. Birrell, who had 
taken a motor drive through a part of Clare. He 
said he had never seen sturdier or more handsome 
children than some he had met with there running 
about barefooted. As to the villages, there was not 
only comfort beginning to show, but coquetry ! — 
lace curtains in the windows. 

Let us look at the matter for a moment in a larger 
scope. In Kilrush I was shown an old record of a 
tour undertaken more than a hundred years ago 
by an adventurous Englishman, who had desired to 
study the natives at first hand. He found Kilrush 
beautifully situated, near the mouth of the noblest 
river in the British Isles, yet he observed that no 
great use had been made of these natural advantages. 
He enquired who was responsible. The reply was : 
Vandeleur. To his astonishment he found that Mr. 
Vandeleur owned the whole town, owned it in the 
literal sense. He enquired what improvements 
Vandeleur had effected. He was told, none. He 
enquired what industries Vandeleur had founded. 
He was told, none. He enquired what trade Vande- 
leur had encouraged. He was told, none. He en- 
quired what this Vandeleur had done. He was told, 
raised the rents. 

Being a practical man as well as a fair-minded 
Englishman, he comments on this case in words that 
are, unfortunately, as readable and apt to-day as 
7 



98 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

they were then. I say, unfortunately, for the cir- 
cumstances have remained similar down to our own 
day. The English traveller exclaims not only against 
the injustice towards the Irish inhabitants, but 
against the cramping nature of the whole system 
that leaves to one man the present fate of a town, 
and the custody of its development, and that man 
so selfish and so little intelligent that even for his 
own benefit he had done nothing to exploit the 
natural resources of the place. 

Note, moreover, that the name Vandeleur has not 
a particularly Milesian flavour nor Norman ring. It 
reminds one of Vanderdecken and Rip Van Winkle, 
but the original representative in Ireland seems to 
have been less enterprising than Vanderdecken, and 
not much more alert than Rip Van Winkle. How 
then did he happen to have fallen into such an 
earthly paradise as he possessed amid the mercurial 
Celts ? By confiscation ! I will say no more on 
this score. Vae Victis. The Celt should have de- 
fended his own better in the past ; we are concerned 
with the present. The Vandeleurs — and I am only 
taking them as a type, and with no animus — simply 
sat upon the people like mandarins, " aliens in lan- 
guage, aliens in blood, aliens in religion." They 
occupied the chief public offices in the community. 
They dispensed law. Yet while contributing nothing 
to the public weal, they set themselves constantly 
by inert opposition, and at the great crises, by 
vehement endeavour, to thwart every effort of the 
people towards freedom, towards education, towards 
personal independence, towards the light. Yet 
there have been, and there are still, good people 
in England who regard the tenants as miscreants 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 99 

because they have not been content under these 
conditions. 

Kilrush is still in the hands of one man, a 
courteous gentleman, I well believe, but one who is 
not the leader of any sort of public activity in the 
place. He is not a Member of Parliament or a 
Member of the County Council, nor indeed of any 
council dealing with local affairs ; he does not live 
in the town. On the other hand that town contains 
intelligent men of spirit and enterprise, men who 
serve on the local councils and who do a great deal 
of useful public service. Their schemes for the 
betterment of Kilrush are all hampered by that 
cardinal fact, that the whole of Kilrush is in the 
hands of one man. And when I look at that admir- 
ably situated town, healthy in the tempered breezes 
that blow therein, with a port that could be made 
excellent, with its inhabitants, intelligent, enter- 
prising, eager, I seem to see it strangled in the 
octopus grasp of a bad old system. 

The same English traveller visited Spanish Point, 
and jotted remarks on a fine building there, the 
Atlantic Hotel, noted for its hot sea-baths. The 
hotel was then the resort of holiday parties, and the 
rendezvous of the aristocracy of the neighbourhood. 
When, a hundred years later, I visited it myself, its 
glory had departed. The solid walls of the old build- 
ing were certainly as firm as ever ; the wonderful site 
had not changed ; from the bedroom window it was 
almost possible to jump into the Atlantic ; a uarrow 
terrace only intervened. Some little distance further 
west was a sandy beach. Behind was a rich grassy 
country spangled now in the million flowers of spring. 
The sky was blue, and the pure air came full in its 



100 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

balmy strength ; a draught of this air was like a 
cup of wine. Inside the roomy bar, I saw a buxom 
young woman serving refreshments. The customers 
were two countrymen who sat in a dark corner. A 
bookshelf containing books was in the bar-room. 
The volumes seemed now to serve as nests for the 
spiders who had woven their webs thickly on the 
shelves. I picked up one or two of the books, feel- 
ing that my sacrilegious hands had been the first for 
a century to intrude on that collection. The books 
were a curious medley — prayer-books, a book of songs, 
an old arithmetic book, and a history of Ireland. 
In a magnificent billiard-room was a table whose 
green baize for a hundred years had stood the battle 
and the breeze. In this room too was a relic of one 
of the vessels of the Spanish Armada driven ashore 
near by. Upstairs were bedrooms, some containing 
superb bedsteads that might have come from Ver- 
sailles, and with canopies overhead. 

" Luxury ! " I said to the humorous Irish " boy " 
who accompanied me. 

" Faith," he replied, " you'd think so, if you saw 
the rain coming in from that hole in the roof, or 
mebbe a squirrel takin' a peep at ye ! " 

" What about the famous baths %" I asked. 

" They're there," he said, " but they're out of 
action ! " 

We looked at them. They were the receptacle of 
books, musty old furniture, and cobwebs. 

When I look upon the West Coast of Ireland I see 
not merely such resorts of natural delight as I have 
described, but elsewhere, as at Kilkee, where it might 
seem that Nature had sat down as a cunning artificer 
to contrive a haunt of pleasure, where a little land- 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 101 

locked bay with shelving sand smiles sheltered from 
the broad Atlantic that booms on the giant guardian 
rocks beyond. If any such spot had been discovered 
in the south of France, in Spain, in the Canaries, it 
would be famous as a Mecca of fashion. 

But here it may be said are matters that might 
have been dealt with independently of the question 
of Home Rule. It does not require an Act of Parlia- 
ment to enable an hotel to cater for customers. 
But it must be remembered that Kilkee is also all 
in the hands of one man. And further the laws in 
dealing with landed property have been made so 
complicated that it is a fearsome thing to meddle with 
titles. In other countries, in Australia for instance, 
a man may transfer his land to another by a mode 
of which the chief formality is due entry in a register. 
In Ireland reforms have been tending in that direc- 
tion ; but I have known men who have been led 
into law on such questions ; and all that the law in- 
volved, and the expenses that have arisen, have 
become their preoccupation for the next five years. 

In order to obtain facilities to advertise a town as 
a health resort it was found necessary to appeal to 
Parliament. In that case after much delay the 
powers required were obtained, but Parliament with 
its cumbrous machinery, its slow methods, its con- 
gested condition, is obviously unsuitable for dealing 
with local matters of no immediate interest to citizens 
of Great Britain, yet of real importance to the 
development of Ireland. 

It is in the light of all these considerations that we 
can answer the question : Has the virtual settlement 
of the Land question taken all the reality out of the 
National ideal ? No. Because in the first place the 



102 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

reforms which have been carried have only prepared 
the way for other vital reforms to come, and these 
are of far-reaching importance and national concern. 
But the deepest answer consists in this, that the Irish 
demand for repeal, for independence, for autonomy, 
for Home Rule, or by whatever means that aspira- 
tion has been known, is not based on the calculation 
of mere financial benefits. The spirit of that move- 
ment has gone into the being of the Irish people. 
Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, Davis, and Meagher, 
were not men who chaffered in a huckster's shop for 
the liberties of Ireland ; they were heroes who threw 
gallantly into the scale all that was dearest to them- 
selves. These were among the men who inspired 
Ireland, and vivified her with their own undying 
spirit. And the sapient " mellow *' statesmen come 
to us from their red-lined ledgers, or their 
partridge preserves, and tell us that for these pay- 
ments on account of justice, these doles, and sops, 
Irishmen will sell their souls and renounce their 
aspirations. 

I know better, for since I came to Ireland never 
have I made an appeal to Irishmen except on the 
broad principle of Nationalism. Individual Irish- 
men may be shrewd at a bargain, some may be place- 
hunters and gain-seekers, some may have even a 
dubious sense of public morality ; get these men 
together in a public meeting, and the address to 
which they respond, which vibrates in their hearts 
and thrills them in enthusiasm, that address is one 
which throws before their eyes the image of Irish 
struggles and points the way to the fulfilment of 
Ireland's triumph. There is no business man so 
sordid as to be content with a presentation of Ire- 



ACTUAL CONDITIONS 103 

land's claims on a basis of 5 per cent. ; he rises to 
the conception of the green flag of Erin floating over 
his own Parliament in College Green, the visible sign 
and symbol of victory, the emblem of a race united, 
progressive, and free ! 

Before concluding this chapter let us take a survey 
of the whole matter, on broad lines, and from a 
detached point of view. Let us look at Ireland with 
knowledge, if possible, with information, and with 
a sort of historical insight, even as Julius Caesar de- 
scribed Britain, or Arthur Young studied France ; 
what would we find ? A country which, not rich in 
minerals, is excellent for agricultural purposes, and 
which is capable of supporting 10,000,000 in com- 
petence, but which nourishes little more than 4,000,000 
in poverty. A people active, of a good and livery dis- 
position, finding no outlet for their energies and living 
in a great proportion of cases fives of despondency, 
of hopelessness. A hard-working people of fine 
physique yet in great part destitute of employment. 
An enterprising people with scanty industries and 
limited trade. An agricultural people who have not 
been able to develop half the possibilities of the 
cultivation of the soil. A farming people with in- 
sufficient markets. An intelligent people deprived 
hitherto of the Government of their own country. 
A generous people united to England as a sullen 
neighbour. A brave people of potential soldiers, a 
source of strength, but in untoward conditions a 
thorn in the flesh to England. These facts indicate 
the material miseries of Ireland ; they throw into 
relief the old incompetence of English rule. 

Is there no other side to the picture possible ? 
Yes, there is possibility of mutual help, mutual en- 



104 IRELAND: VITAL HOUE 

deavour, mutual trust, of that natural condition of 
association when we find that 

Good, 
The more communicated, more abundant grows, 
The author not impaired but honoured more. 

It behoves us all to cast aside all petty motives, and 
work for that accomplishment. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE IRISH IN AMERICA 

The Irish, in America : that is a name of great por- 
tent. It makes an effect in a debate in the House 
of Commons, or in private conversation with some 
earnest Liberal or well-intentioned Tory, to utter in 
impressive tones, Irish in America. It never fails to 
produce a significant shake of the head and a look of 
political profundity, all the more profound when the 
politician is at a loss to say, who and what the Irish 
in America are. 

On two occasions I have visited America, and on 
both these occasions I have had as good an oppor- 
tunity as most of knowing the Irish in America. 
From my earliest years I had been acquainted with 
the history of America, had found it fascinating, and 
had always held before me as a dream to be realised 
a visit to the land of the Stars and Stripes. No born 
American could have experienced a greater thrill of 
delight on seeing "Old Glory " than I did when I 
first beheld that flag of freedom flying over American 
soil. A magnificent sweep up the harbour to New 
York, the giant statue of Liberty, the wonderful 
Brooklyn Bridge — seen dimly through the grey misty 
morning, it looked as if suspended from the clouds 
— and then the irregular skyline of New York 
with its grandeur, its audacities, its stretching out 

105 



106 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

towards the future, all made an impression which 
can never be forgotten. 

It was easy for me to fall in with the Irish in 
America and with Americans generally, for they 
seemed to me not unlike Australians. I liked their 
freedom, their independence. It was a revelation to 
find the manner in which looking through the re- 
verse end of the telescope, they regarded the institu- 
tions and the pomp and circumstance of the British 
Isles. 

I confess I was somewhat disappointed at the first 
view of the physique of the Yankees. I had always 
associated ideas of liberty and independence with a 
dauntless manner, bold bearing, and fine physique. 
I could find little indeed that to me was reminiscent 
of the spirit of Washington, Andrew Jackson, or 
Jefferson. Gradually, however, this impression be- 
came corrected. The reputation of a country some- 
times rests less on the average type than on some 
brilliant exceptions who nevertheless are indigenous 
to the soil ; as, for instance, when in Madrid I sought 
long to find a beautiful woman, until one night at 
the theatre I saw a young Signorina step from her 
carriage in all the mild splendour of a beauty that 
might have taken a sculptor's breath away. 

A few repetitions of a similar experience made me 
think of Spain as the land of beautiful women, and 
now also I remember the magnificent types of 
physical humanity with whom I became acquainted 
in the United States, and of whom my old friend, 
John L. Sullivan, was one of the best. That fighter 
has been made famous in marble, and also celebrated 
in poetic prose by another Irish genius, John Boyle 
O'Reilly. I was welcomed with the warm American 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 107 

hospitality which sometimes astonishes our " serious 
Angles." I was told in Yankee phrase " to come 
right along and we'll fix you up." One of the first 
men to whom I was introduced caught me by the 
lapel of the coat and said : " That is good stuff, what 
did you pay for that coat ? " This remark sur- 
prised me at the moment, and it did not occur to 
me until long afterwards that it was a test to ascer- 
tain as to whether I belonged to a certain inner 
circle or not. During my stay in America I met 
with other curious remarks, as, for instance, when I 
was asked abruptly, " Did you go to Church this 
morning ? " This again was but the probing of one 
of those secrets which Irishmen are prone to harbour, 
but which always He uneasy in their minds unless 
everyone knows that it is a secret. There seemed 
to me little need for secrecy in America, which is a 
free country, generally sympathetic to the Irish 
cause, and where all the objects of the great Irish 
societies are perfectly legitimate. 

Moreover, although I was unable to respond to 
these secret signals I seemed to be admitted pretty 
freely to meetings of organisations which are gener- 
ally believed to be secret. I remember on one 
occasion a visitor had entered in the usual way, a 
mild little gentleman, who seemed astonished to find 
himself in the presence of the fiery orator who was 
in full swing in front of him, and whose speech was ap- 
plauded so vehemently by determined-looking men all 
around him. After some time he explained that he 
thought he had come into the wrong room. He had. 
He was a member of a Quaker-like society, which was 
holding a convention overhead. That little incident 
seemed to me to throw a beam of light on the degree 



108 IEELAND : VITAL HOUE 

of secrecy with which these great Irish organisa- 
tions invested themselves. There was another point 
of still greater importance in this regard. Such 
organisations in America are nearly all advocates of 
physical force. I certainly had no sentimental 
objection to physical force then, nor indeed have I 
now. All Governments, even the best regulated, 
depend on physical force, or as Napoleon Bonaparte 
expressed it with terseness, " Laws rest on bayonets." 
A good Government keeps the bayonets in evidence 
as little as possible, and the machine runs smoothly. 
When an untoward incident of any great magnitude 
occurs, such as the famous gun-running in Ulster, 
the truth of the aphorism is truly seen, for where the 
force of the nation is flouted the law has ceased to 
exist. 

It must be remembered that these Irish Americans 
have come from a stock which has suffered persecu- 
tion and oppression for generations. They have 
been practically driven from Ireland by stern neces- 
sity, and they have departed to the accompaniment 
of jibes and insults. The memories of these wrongs 
have been nursed, and they have no obligation 
whatever not to show themselves the most bitter and 
irreconcilable enemies of England, nor to refrain from 
using all the physical force at their command. What 
I really found was something to the contrary of this 
idea. I did not see effective physical force. Some- 
times in casting my eye over a vast hall filled with 
ten thousand people I have noted the fine physique 
and military bearing, as well as the resolute and 
determined look in the faces, as of men dipped in the 
energising bath of the Republic. These men were 
great as fighting material. Multiply such a meeting 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 109 

by hundreds, and a good notion may be obtained 
of the capacity for physical force of the Irish in 
America. Yet at moments of crisis the physical- 
force principle has hitherto failed. During the 
Fenian times physical force in America simply 
amounted to a daring but abortive raid into Canada. 
It is true, however, that a great number of the Fenian 
agitators were Irishmen who had fought in the 
American Civil War and afterwards had crossed over 
to Ireland warm with all the qualities of daring 
soldiers and formidable conspirators. Nevertheless 
the fact remains that the American organisations 
have never played a really important part as physical- 
force movements. During the Boer War the Irish 
organisations in America furnished less than one 
hundred soldiers for the front, and some of these 
were men of no great military value. One of them 
disappeared when he discovered that fighting was 
really intended. Another had never ridden a horse 
in his life, although of course, in the Boer mode of 
warfare good riding was essential. In order to 
balance this statement, however, I should add that 
this young man was a " born soldier." He mounted 
his horse for the first time with great assurance and 
pluck, and he had not been in laager a week before 
he could ride well enough for duty. 

There is a saying that has come down from 'Con- 
nellys time that England's danger is Ireland's oppor- 
tunity. If then there ever occurred an event which 
should have called forth the entire strength of the 
physical-force party in America, that surely was 
the Boer War which tried England's resources 
severely, which lasted some three years and during 
which, for a certain period at least, the fortunes of 



110 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the belligerents hung in the balance. That period 
had already passed when these Irish American 
volunteers appeared upon the scene ; their con- 
tribution therefore to the outcome of the campaign 
was negligible. When after my return to Europe I 
proceeded to America I found " tall talk " of war, 
but when I enquired how it came about that so few 
volunteers had been sent, I was informed that even 
this result did not spring from the official action of 
any great organisation. 

The work of recruiting and equipping of these men 
was mainly due to the determination and energy of 
Colonel John Finerty, a man who had seen service in 
Indian warfare and who was afterwards noted as one 
of the most powerful platform orators in America. 
It appears that when the proposition was made to 
seize this famous opportunity to strike a blow on 
physical-force lines the leaders objected that such 
an action would " break up the organisation." When 
I heard this the sense of the ridiculous so surged upon 
my mind as to sweep away the last trace of exaspera- 
tion. Here were these mighty organisations kept 
alive by the devotion and sometimes by the very 
real self-sacrifice of ardent Irishmen in America, 
organisations which had seen many fortunes, which 
had been in existence for years, which had wielded 
great political power, but of which the sole ostensible 
reason for existence was the advocacy, and at the 
right moment, the realisation of the doctrines of 
physical force. The opportunity had come, and 
when the whole Irish world was expecting that as 
at Fontenoy these warriors would electrify the field 
by the display of their impetuous valour, what hap- 
pened ? The astute leaders put down their foot 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 111 

firmly, and said, "No, we are not going to break up 
the organisation ! " And when Colonel John Finerty 
insisted, he roused a storm of opposition and a per- 
sonal hostility which continued to be waged against 
him till the day of his death. 

Before proceeding I will dwell upon John Finerty 
for a moment, for he was a type again and again 
reproduced in Irish history. I had heard of his 
fame and particularly of the irresistible flow of his 
oratory. This is a type of which I have always 
been suspicious, so that I had no great predilections 
in favour of John Finerty. The moment I shook 
hands with him, however, all my " preventions " 
vanished. He was one of those men who had the 
secret, such as I think Irishmen more than any other 
race possess, of geniality, or rather of something 
richer than that, the outpouring of an overflowing 
cordial nature. There was in this, however, no art 
of manner. The sole secret lay in the generous 
impulses of his great heart. He was a very big man, 
not only tall, but broad and massive, such a man as 
one might have pictured holding the centre of Brian 
Bora's army at Clontarf, wielding a ponderous 
battle-axe like a whip, and with a dauntlessness 
which had grown up in association with that ex- 
uberant physique. 

His oratory was such as one might have expected 
in a man of that type who had become studious and 
well read, and in whom a serious concern for affairs 
had not extinguished that native humour of his 
race which indeed had grown proportionate to the 
figure of the man. I was present when he addressed 
a large assembly, at a time when feelings were mount- 
ing in regard to the great presidential election ; and, 



112 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

with his rich rolling voice endowed with many 
cadences, I saw him move the audience to laughter 
and to tears, and work them up again to a tone of 
fierce determination. Finerty was one of those who 
looked at most political questions simply from the 
Irish point of view, and this gave rise to a famous 
joke on the part of another Irishman, Mr. Peter 
Dunn, the author of " Mr. Dooley in Peace and 
War." Dunn related that when Colonel Finerty 
was coming out of Congress one day he met a friend, 
a fellow Irishman, who asked him what was being 
done. Finerty replied : " Nothing important, only 
American business." 

This joke, which no doubt exaggerated the posi- 
tion a little, caused resentment in the mind of Colonel 
Finerty and for a time he and the creator of " Dooley " 
were not on speaking terms. I was the innocent 
cause of their reconciliation. On the very day that 
I had been introduced to Finerty I was walking with 
him along Broadway when Dunn passed. Seeing 
Finerty he offered to him a somewhat effaced and 
diffident bow to which Finerty made no response. I 
looked at the gentleman and from pictures I had 
seen I guessed that he was no other than Mr. Dunn. I 
said to Finerty : " I believe that was Dooley Dunn." 

Finerty with his massive head in the air replied : 
" Possibly." 

I had not been aware of any cause of friction 
between them and so I continued : " He bowed to 
you, you know." 

" Did he ? " cried Finerty, suddenly. 

His whole manner changed. It was like the 
melting of an iceberg. He turned and ran after 
Dunn. I ran with him. He caught Dunn by the 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 113 

elbow and introduced me to him, and we all three 
spent a happy time together. I thought there was a 
touch of Irish history there, a little parable which 
sent the plummet deep. 

To resume the question of the Irish organisations, 
there was from the point of view of the leaders a 
great deal in the plea that Finerty's action might 
break up the organisations, that is to say, might 
break them up if the physical-force principle was 
only a banner to flatter the hopes of enthusiastic 
Irishmen, and if the real purpose in the minds of 
those astute leaders was found in their influence on 
American politics. It is almost inevitable when any 
powerful organisation has been built up from any 
motive or on any principle whatever that finally it 
will be turned to use as an engine in determining the 
fortunes of one of the great political parties of the 
state. The origin of Tammany Hall, for instance, is 
to be found in the desire of a few ardent young men 
for high principle in political matters and purity in 
administration. Tammany Hall at its beginning had 
more resemblance to a Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion than to the terrible " Tiger " so often assailed 
by reformers and so often lampooned by caricaturists. 
So it will always be with regard to organisations in 
America, even physical-force organisations, for physi- 
cal force is a somewhat far-off thing and not always 
appreciated or welcomed when brought near, whereas 
the battles of Democrats and Republicans are 
always with us and a world of spoils marks the 
difference between victory and defeat. It is almost 
inevitable then that such organisations will find 
their chief use in regimenting men in the electoral 
campaigns. 
8 



114 IBELAND: VITAL HOUR 

Irishmen have won a great reputation for political 
aptitude and this has certainly reached its highest 
development in the United States. The keenness of 
the Yankees, their business-like standards, their 
directness and go-aheadedness, have proved just the 
very tonics required to give edge, precision, and in- 
tention to the great Irish qualities of energy, cour- 
age, and dash. An incident comes to my mind which 
illustrates the political faculty of Irishmen. I visited 
one of the large American cities, which I will not 
more closely indicate, inhabited mainly by the Irish 
and Germans, the Teuton element having been 
brought there on account of the brewing industries of 
the place which is famous for its beer. The Germans 
are in the majority. One of my friends I shall call 
Michael O'Halloran — he was not one of the Germans. 
Michael was a man of great local influence. We were 
discussing the power of the Irish in the Government. 
" Well, Michael/' I said, " how are you doing in this 
city ? " Had Michael been an untravelled Irish- 
man he might have answered impulsively ; but he 
was an American, and he had absorbed American 
aplomb and had cultivated coolness with all the in- 
tensity of a Celtic nature. When an Englishman 
looks cool and stolid the reason generally is that he 
is cool and stolid, but when an Irishman is cool and 
stolid we get beyond nature, it is a work of Art. 
So Michael drew three puffs of his cigar, gently 
knocked off the ash on the heel of his boot and an- 
swered, " P'utty well." 

" Ah ! " I replied, " Michael, and what do you 
call pretty well ? " Michael took three more long- 
drawn puffs and held up his cigar balanced between 
the thumb and index finger as he spoke slowly : 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 115 

" There are one hundred offices in the gift of this 
Municipality. We have got ninety-eight." 

" Michael," I said, "you have done pretty well." 
Tammany Hall has been plentifully abused as the 
seat of corruption and the model of all that is in- 
iquitous, but even in that regard we must hold the 
scales fairly, although without weakness. I do not 
think any standard of rectitude can be cast too high 
for the conduct of public affairs. A public office 
should be regarded as a duty ; and, higher even than 
in the case of the social or personal life, a public 
man should be able to repeat the proud saying : 
"Touch my honour, touch my eye." Consequently 
I would like to see eliminated not only from 
America, but from Ireland, and from England, all 
that system of gaining power by purchase of votes 
either directly or in tortuous ways which eventually 
result in it, and I would desire to see a representa- 
tive chosen solely for the good character of his prin- 
ciples and the integrity of his conduct in public 
affairs. But that is a counsel of perfection, and no 
one would say it applied to Tammany. But Tammany 
retorts, and certainly not without reason, that the 
same principles are at work on the Republican side, 
and, bringing the matter nearer home, in England 
even amongst the most select party and the most 
distinguished representatives of the nation. In the 
House of Commons itself, have we never heard of 
votes being secured by offices, by appointments, by 
all manner of social dignities, by those dazzling lures 
of which the knighthood appeals to thousands and the 
peerage to the upper crust of wealth of those 
thousands. 

Tammany has become especially notorious of late 



116 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

on account of the revelations of the police methods 
of terrorism and graft. When it becomes possible in 
a great city for a police officer to remove a citizen 
by having him shot by gun-men, it is time for the 
State to sit in inquest on the whole system. I 
have only referred to Tammany in passing for I am not 
acquainted with all the extraordinary ramifications 
of that system, but I believe that in spite of the 
many scandals associated with its name its success 
is mainly due to the development to a high degree 
of those principles of organisation which all political 
parties practise, and in which their leaders take a 
pardonable pride. I met several leaders of Tammany 
whilst I was in New York ; and they were all serious 
men, and they had the reputation of leading irre- 
proachable personal lives. 

Before leaving the question of these organisations 
I will touch upon another trait of character. One 
action of the Clan-na-Gael caused it to leap into the 
limelight of the American stage ; that was the 
murder of Dr. Cronin. The question aroused deep 
passions and in the organisation itself the cleavage 
was very deep. One side asserted that Cronin was 
a spy, and that his death was simply a justifiable 
act of execution. Another section, perhaps smaller, 
asserted that Cronin was a patriotic man, indepen- 
dent, intelligent, and upright, and that his main 
offence was that he had at times thwarted the leaders 
and had insisted upon a scrupulous overhauling of 
the accounts. One of the prominent leaders told 
me that he was unable to determine which of these 
judgments was correct, but that he would like to 
introduce me to the man who was generally believed 
to have engineered the plot of the slaying of Cronin. 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 117 

This was the late Alexander Sullivan, a man who was 
at one time chosen to run in the Irish interest for 
the vice-Presidency of the United States. What 
share, if any, Sullivan had taken in the assassination 
of Cronin I do not know ; he was certainly a man 
not averse to violent actions as the following little 
story will indicate. One day in Chicago, Sullivan 
was walking with his wife who was remarkable for her 
personal beauty. He entered a tobacconist's shop 
to get a cigar, leaving his wife outside; she walked 
quietly up and down outside the shop. When in a 
few moments he reappeared, she, her eyes blazing 
with indignation, pointed out to him a man who, 
she said, had insulted her. Sullivan instantly whipped 
out his revolver and shot the man dead. He was 
acquitted for this even with acclamation ; and in 
regard to the Cronin affair no charge was ever sheeted 
home against him. 

I found him seated in an office in one of those vast 
American buildings which are perfect beehives of 
business. It was a remarkable man I saw before 
me. He recalled President MacKinley, who again 
was said by his admirers to have resembled Napoleon. 
But Sullivan was a man cast in a stronger mould than 
MacKinley ; there was something more powerful 
and determinate in the set of his features. He was 
certainly a man of great intelligence, quiet and 
courteous in manner, discoursing freely on many 
subjects and speaking always with judgment and 
good sense. But in that grey steely eye there was a 
light which told me of a man who could be a redoubt- 
able opponent and terrible enemy. I regarded him 
as a political lost soul. He had qualities of brain 
and character which might have advanced him to 



118 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the highest rank in his country, but he had drooped 
to the condition of those whose names are remembered 
only on account of the mystery that lurks about 
their character. 

About the same time also I had a conversation 
with a Western judge, one of those Irishmen whose 
temperament and style seem expressly formed to 
belie the popular opinion of the Irishman, or at any 
rate of the stage Irishman — a studious reflective 
man. I said to him it was a source of pleasure to 
me to think that the Irish people had been so suc- 
cessful in America. He said in reply : " No they 
have not been successful. Or rather not nearly as 
successful as they might be." As this was the first 
time I had heard such a note I pricked up my ears 
and asked him to explain. 

He continued : " You think they are successful be- 
cause your attention has been attracted by many 
men of Irish names who have become famous in 
America, and you have met Irishmen occupying high 
positions and wielding great authority. But you 
must consider the condition of the whole race of that 
great mass of people numbering millions who have 
come from Ireland to the United States. A great 
number go under. A great proportion are simply 
hewers of wood and drawers of water and apparently 
destined to remain so. They migrate too much to 
the large towns where a few achieve success, but 
where a great number endure all sorts of miseries. 
Then far too many of them spend their whole time 
in politics. It is very useful, of course, in fact it is 
necessary for the salvation of the race that they 
should have great political representatives but, 
quite apart from this, there are many who are shift- 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 119 

less and who merely hang round the outskirts of 
politics. Then again most of those who have gained 
distinction have done so through the paths of politics. 
We want something else, we want other activities, 
we want more extensive and better education, and 
we must not be content simply with laying the 
flattering unction to our souls that we have achieved 
success in the States." 

From time to time I reflected upon these remarks 
and too often I found something that verified them. 
There are many fields of honourable ambition in 
the States in which Irishmen have not sufficiently 
made their mark ; for instance, in the enormous 
domain now opened up by the sciences and their 
myriad applications to all kinds of industries, Irish- 
men are not sufficiently represented. There are a 
few bright names here and there of quite Milesian 
flavour — Murphy, with his famous button, comes to 
my mind for one — but these only serve to indicate 
that the pure Celt has the qualities necessary to fit 
him to achieve brilliant success in the most arduous 
fields of science ; he should direct his energy far 
more than hitherto in that direction. Then again 
in looking over the list of celebrated American 
millionaires, who in the picturesque words of the 
Yellow journal from which I take the list, " wield 
the destinies of America," I find few Irish names. 
I do not take the millionaire as a high type of 
humanity. When I have heard at times of how 
fortunes are made, my impulse has not been to 
raise my eyes in worship of the golden calf but to 
enquire why the people did not go after the wretch 
with shot-guns. Yet if the Irish were sufficiently 
represented in the world of commercial enterprise 



120 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the spirit of emulation alone would lead them to 
fight for the seats of distinction. 

I could continue but I believe the upshot is this, 
that outside the circle of politics Irishmen have not 
yet rendered in the public life of America that 
record of which the race is capable. And even in 
politics we are obliged to make this qualification, 
that in the very highest field of influence the Irish 
element is not sufficiently represented. There have 
not been many American presidents bearing Irish 
names. Certainly MacKinley's grandfather was said 
to have been hanged in '98, and that has always 
been a source of satisfaction to us ; and President 
Roosevelt told me himself that he had a strain of 
Irish blood in his veins, and that he was proud of it. 
For some years past Irishmen have been able to give 
as the reason for a deficiency of influence that they 
have in the great bulk supported the Democrats, 
and the Democrats have been successful only on 
few occasions. Now at length the Democrats are in 
power, but when President Wilson was forming his 
Cabinet he did not go to the Irish for his men. Bryan 
is certainly an Irish name, but I know that Bryan 
declared on one occasion that he had been unable to 
discover any Irish ancestors, though this failure has 
not prevented him on suitable occasions as at Irish 
gatherings, from claiming their support on account 
of his patronymic. 

Moreover, I met with this curious fact, that the 
second and third generations often fall entirely from 
the Cause as viewed from the Irish standpoint. I 
have heard of the sons of those whose names have 
figured prominently in Irish rebellions and agitations, 
and those sons have either drifted away from the 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 121 

Irish cause or deliberately turned their back upon 
it. The Yankees are essentially the people of the 
present and the future, and it is difficult to interest 
them in the story of antiquated wrongs or the records 
of past oppressions and hopeless campaigns for 
redress. Something new, something of develop- 
ment, something involving a great effort and a great 
prize must be held up before their eyes to excite their 
enthusiasm. There is a great deal of right in that 
appreciation of things. 

On the other hand, it must be noted that even 
those who are indifferent to the Irish cause are not 
in the least enamoured of any policy which helps 
England ; and here I think we are touching on the 
nerve of the real formidable influence of the Irish 
in American affairs. I would like to throw this 
matter out in the very clearest relief for the instruc- 
tion both of Irish and English statesmen. I have 
spoken of the big organisations and with no great 
faith in the professed central object of their exis- 
tence, but I have a very great respect for the power 
wielded by a chain of such organisations running 
through all the States of America and working deter- 
minedly in one direction. At the moment of political 
crisis most of these organisations are of course dead 
against England. Moreover, we have seen that 
when the German and the Irish men are pitted 
together on equal terms the Irish man displays, 
in politics at least, an organising faculty superior 
to that of the German. Lately the German and 
the Irish organisations have made many over- 
tures towards a possible banding together for 
certain purposes and if such a union were accom- 
plished it is possible that the organisations so 



122 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

formed might control all the great works of 
American policy. 

From time to time the Irish alone have defeated 
projects which would have rendered great service to 
England. I remember Michael Davitt telling me 
that on one occasion an arbitration treaty was on the 
point of being concluded between Great Britain and 
the United States, and this with the acquiescence, 
rather than with any enthusiastic support of American 
politicians. Davitt learned of the move in time to 
go to Washington and after a few days' active lobby- 
ing amongst the Senators he was able to secure the 
rejection of the measure. Since that time the 
urgency to England of such a treaty or its equiva- 
lent has become more and more pressing. 

It must not be forgotten that when the conditions 
of English greatness are explored they will be found 
to derive from a period, when, as after the Battle 
of Trafalgar, England had swept her rivals from the 
sea and had gained a free hand for expansion and 
trade in the lands of almost unlimited resources over 
the seas. England is now being hard pressed by 
keen rivals and even in the test for naval supremacy 
she is by no means secure in her position. To sum 
up in a few words what could be expanded into a 
volume, it seems to me that the closest possible 
friendship with the United States is necessary to 
England's salvation. The Irish element hitherto 
stood in the way, their opposition would in great 
part disappear if all cause of ill-will at home were 
removed. 

The European war has afforded the confirmation of 
what is here set down. The powerful German in- 
fluence in the States was found unanimous and 



THE IRISH IN AMERICA 123 

furiously hostile to England. Had an event arisen 
to produce unanimity and hostility also throughout 
the entire Irish population in Ireland, in England, 
in the Dominions, and in America, a situation of 
serious danger to the British Government would have 
arisen. The evidence of good-will shown in placing 
the Home Rule Act on the Statute Book prevented 
such a combination. The lesson thus obtained 
should suggest the ultimate settlement of the whole 
Irish question on large and generous lines. 



CHAPTER V 

PRIESTS IN POLITICS 

A conversation which is typical comes to my mind. 
An English confrere waxed eloquent on the subject 
of priests in politics, pointed out the many evils that 
resulted from the mingling of spiritual influences in 
purely secular affairs, and finally asked me if I did not 
agree that the system should be ended. My reply 
was that I was prepared to go further than he. 

" Ah," he exclaimed in eagerness, " what would 
you do % " 

I answered that I would like to prevent not only 
priests but Protestant clergymen from using undue 
influence in politics. My confrere's whole attitude 
changed. He had been riding the high horse in 
virtuous indignation against the tyranny of the 
priests, but he viewed with a complacent eye, not to 
say lively approval, the brigading of young Oxford 
curates as electioneering agents for the Tory party. 
" I regard myself," said one of these zealots, " as a 
connecting link between the Upper and the Lower 
classes." And this exquisite union of dignity and 
humility seemed to encourage him to invoke the 
authority of the Anglican Church and the co-opera- 
tion of God in a parish contest. 1 

1 I have a sheaf of notes collected at various periods, all telling the 
same story, the intolerance that has infected so many ecclesiastical 
souls. The spirit of these is well expressed in a passage which I quote 

124 



PKIESTS IN POLITICS 125 

At the outset I will say that I do not desire here 
to trench upon the question of religion. All the 

from a recent letter of Mr. J. G. Swift MacNeill, K.C., M.P., himself 
a Protestant, to the Right Rev. Dr. D'Arcy. The letter which ap- 
peared in the " Freeman's Journal " bears the date of 11th November 
1913. 

My Lord Bishop, — I feel it due to myself as an Irish Pro- 
testant who cannot sign his name without being reminded of his 
associations with Irish Protestant Churchmen to take grave 
exception to a series of extraordinary statements made by you 
with reference to your Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen — 
statements which assume an enormous gravity when coming 
from a Prelate of your well-deserved eminence for piety and 
learning. 

In an address to the Synod of the Diocese of Down, Connor and 
Dromore you say in reference to the Roman Catholic Church, 
" toleration for her is only a temporary expedient." Would it 
not grieve us to hear any Roman Catholic pronounce such a judg- 
ment on the Irish Protestant Church, even if he were to base it 
on an historical document and make the following incontro- 
vertible statement : " An assembly of Irish Protestant Prelates, 
convened by Archbishop Usher, declared ' the religion of Papists 
is superstitious and idolatrous, their faith and doctrine erroneous 
and heretical, their Church in respect to both apostatical ; to 
give them, therefore, a toleration or to consent that they may 
freely exercise their religion and profess their faith and doctrine 
is a grievous sin ' " ? 
I quote another example from a Home Rule publication : 

When the disestablishment of the Church was proposed, Irish 
Protestants threatened civil war, exactly as they are doing to- 
day, and with exactly the same seriousness of intention ; but it 
was not for religion they were proposing to fight. The Rev. 
Henry Henderson, of Holywood, one of their chief spokesmen, 
said, before a great Orange meeting at Saintfield, County Down : 
It was right they should tell their English brethren the 
truth. It was right they should tell them that so long as 
there was Protestantism in the land, and a Protestant Sove- 
reign occupying the throne, so long must there be a Protestant 
Ascendancy. 
If it be objected that the incidents refer to a past time and that the 
spirit has changed, I will simply appeal to any man of candour, on 
either side, who has interested himself in an Election for Parliament 



126 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

great churches, however, have two aspects ; one as 
the centre of the propagation of an evangel — revela- 

in any part of England ; can he say otherwise than that the Church 
as a Church, and the individual clerics as partisans, take an active 
interest in politics, and that they do not hesitate to use the authority 
they derive from their religion ? Here is an instance I take from 
" John Bull," which is not, I believe, a Home Rule paper. The date 
is 21st May 1910. It illustrates the methods of a clergyman in his 
opposition to Radicals. 

Of course, it was not only Free Church ministers who distin- 
guished themselves during the late election. For instance, there 
was the Rev. W. Bankes Williams, Vicar of Acton, in the Sun- 
bury Division. This good man sent out a circular to the village 
electors hoping that they " would refuse to support a party 
which is allied to another party whose leader makes these con- 
fessions of doctrine: (1) I deny the existence of a Heavenly 
Father ; (2) I strongly believe that Jesus Christ never existed 
at all ; (3) I do not believe that there is any Heaven, and I 
scorn the idea of Hell." We do not know what leader of a party 
has expressed himself in this way, but, assuming the rev. gentle- 
man means that the Liberals are allied with the Labourites, and 
in that case assuring him that both of them deny being allied 
with each other, we may say the leader of the Labourites is Mr. 
Arthur Henderson, a Wesleyan preacher of great piety. If the 
rev. gentleman is pointing at Mr. Blatchford, that gentleman is 
in fact " allied " with the Tory party, and probably won a few 
seats for them. We know what they call the suggestio falsi in 
Whitechapel. Will our rev. friend tell us what they call it in the 
religious circle in which he moves ? 
In a recent issue of the "Daily Chronicle" (9th December 1910) 
appears a report referring to the case of the Rev. J. M. Carrack, curate 
of St. James's, Little Roke, Kenley, from which I extract the fol- 
lowing : 

Nothing, indeed, occurred to mar the serenity of his life and 
career till the election of January 1910. Then it became known 
that he was guilty of the crime of being a Liberal. It became 
known that he was in favour of the terrible Budget ; he was in 
favour of the land taxes ; he was in favour of the super-tax on 
big incomes ; he was in favour, not of the rich, but of the poor. 

And some of the select people of Coulsdon and Kenley held up 
their hands in horror. 
He did not go on Liberal platforms ; he did not advertise his 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 127 

tion, philosophy, or dogma ; the other as a social and 
political organisation. In making the distinction 

Liberal views. But it was sufficient that he was a Liberal. 
From that moment, by some people at least, he seems to have 
been condemned. 

A representative of the " Daily Chronicle " yesterday called 
on him, and asked if he had any evidence to bear out what people 
in the district were saying — that he was having to leave because 
of his politics. 

Almost without a word he went to a cabinet, produced some 
letters, and handed them for inspection. This was the effect 
of one : — 

I understand you are in favour of the Liberal Government 
and that that Government intends to bring in a Welsh Dis- 
establishment Bill. Yet I am asked to contribute towards 
your stipend. 
In another letter one reads : 

Apart from other things, I am afraid your party has the in- 
tention of disendowing the Church. 

No fewer than 430 people signed a petition to the Bishop of 
Southwark that Mr. Carrack should not leave the district, but 
that the parish should be divided and that he should have charge 
of the working class portion in which he has laboured so hard 
and well. Another petition to the same effect was signed by 
practically all the people living on the Downs. 

Such petitions, at any rate, show that in the district where he 

and his work are known he has been beloved and appreciated. 

But the way of the Liberal is hard. 

This certainly refers to England, but I am merely showing that 

undue influence in politics is not confined to the priests in Ireland. 

From another bundle of notes I observe certain circumstances which 

could have no other cause than long-continued, unfair discrimination 

in regard to religion. 

A Parliamentary White Paper (moved for by Mr. MacVeagh, 
M.P.) gives a summary of the religious denominations of the 
Irish Magistrates in both counties and boroughs. It shows that 
in the counties there are 5,347 persons on the Commission of the 
Peace, of whom 3,302 are Protestants, and 2,033 Roman Catholics, 
six are set down as of other religious denominations, one is a 
Jew, and in five cases the religion is unknown. It is well to note 
that the Episcopalians, who form one-tenth of the population, 
can boast of 2,631 magistrates, while the Presbyterians, who 



128 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the churches themselves have already aided us, for 
in their political propaganda, for example, I have 

almost equal the Episcopalians in number, have but 526. In the 

boroughs the totals of Episcopalians and Presbyterians are 194 

and 117 respectively, so that the aggregates are more nearly 

proportionate. Of the gross total of 5,959 magistrates in all 

Ireland, 2,825 are Episcopalians, 643 are Presbyterians, and 2,275 

are Roman Catholics. 

To interpret these documents aright the proportion of Catholics to 

Protestants in Ireland should be borne in mind. Clearly a spirit has 

been at work. That spirit is here indicated : 

Until the passing of Mr. Gerald Balfour's Local Government 
Act for Ireland, the Episcopalians also controlled, through the 
now defunct Grand Juries, the local government of nearly every 
county in Ireland. Even in counties where the Roman Catholics 
formed 95 per cent, of the population, it was an event of the 
rarest occurrence to appoint a Roman Catholic to even the most 
menial office. The appointment of a Presbyterian or a Methodist 
was even rarer. It was of this system that John Bright declared 
in the House of Commons : 

These Ulstermen have stood in the way of improvement 

in the Franchise, in the Church, and in the Land Question. 

They have purchased Protestant Ascendancy, and the price 

paid for it is the ruin and degradation of their country." 
A piquant letter from a Protestant, Mr. J. Annan Bryce, M.P., 
further illustrates this matter : 

It was natural that in the past the influence of the Irish 
priests should be great. They come from the peasant class, and 
have a fellow-feeling with its ills, and were the friends (indeed, 
the only friends) of that class in its long social struggle. They 
possessed the natural influence given by a better education ; and, 
in fact, in many parts of Ireland the priest was the only educated 
man whose advice and help the people could obtain. After all, 
their power has, perhaps, not been so great as that of the parson 
in rural England, wielding, as the latter does, the temporal weapon 
of the deprivation of coals and blankets — a weapon probably 
more potent in some cases than any mere spiritual menace of 
what may happen in a future state. Since the Local Govern- 
ment Act of 1898 it has not been found that the priest interferes, 
unless in the rare cases where there is a question of personal 
morality, and then not always with success. 
Finally I could show official documents in hand, that whereas Catholic* 



PKIESTS IN POLITICS 129 

never known them derive their positions from the 
Sermon on the Mount, nor draw inspiration from 
the precepts of meekness therein contained. 

Having cleared the ground in this manner, I will 
say candidly that I am not opposed to the influence 
of priests in politics, if when entering into the poli- 
tical arena the priest will divest himself of his saintly 
office, offer arguments like other men, stand the 
same scrutiny and criticism, and take good-humouredly 
the rubs and cuffs incidental to a political struggle ; 
I am resolutely opposed to priests in politics when 
the priest throws into the scale his sacerdotal emblems, 
and when he speaks ex cathedra and dictatorially on 
subjects wherein he has no special intelligence, and 
where his religion, if truly invoked, would cover him 
with confusion. 

Certainly the priests have great influence in 
politics in Ireland, they have undue influence, and it 
must be the task of Irish Nationalists to emancipate 
themselves from that undue influence if ever they 
mean to lift the country out of the Slough of De- 
spond where it has lain so long. These questions 
must be tackled resolutely. This is not the way of 
popularity, but it is the way of the salvation of 
Ireland. Irishmen should face the issue with cour- 
age, for it requires more courage sometimes to 
acknowledge a truth than to shout war-cries to the 

in the South have been generous in bestowing lucrative posts on 
Protestants, yet in Belfast no Catholic can obtain a post other than 
a menial and ill-paid situation. 

I will leave the subject, however, for the present. I have entered 
into it not without repugnance, and my object has been not to whip 
up prejudices, but merely to give a judicious pause to those who rail 
against the priests in politics, but who have never observed that there 
is also another side to the question. 

9 



130 IRELAND : VITAL HOUB 

approval of a mob or even to risk life in a display of 
heroism on a splendid field. 

Macaulay has a terrible passage 1 in which he points 
out the difference of prosperity between Protestant 
communities and those which remain under the 
domination of the Church of Rome. It may be 
objected that commercial prosperity is not all, that 
spirituality must be taken into account, and more- 
over that Macaulay was a Protestant bigot. That 
may possibly be the case, but it does not dispose of 
the facts. Let us look these steadily in the face, and 
if the condition of affairs even now justifies Macau- 
lay's statement, let us strike out manfully in the 
way of redemption. 

In no country have I seen the Pope and the 

1 The following is the passage from Macaulay 's " History of Eng- 
land." I do not ask Catholics to endorse it, and for my own part I 
am not in the least concerned with the religious or philosophical tenets 
of Protestants ; but I will say to the most devout believer, read and 
reflect : 

The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under 
her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and intel- 
lectual torpor, while Protestant countries, once proverbial for 
sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry 
into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, 
philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and 
Scotland really are, and what four hundred years ago they actually 
were, shall now compare the country round Rome with the 
country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment 
as to the tendency of Papal domination. The descent of Spain, 
once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths of degrada- 
tion, the elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural disad- 
vantages, to a position, such as no commonwealth so small haa 
ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in Ger- 
many from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in 
Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in 
Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds 
that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilisation. 
On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails. 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 131 

domination of Home more audaciously attacked than 
in Italy. Again let us pass over the religious feeling, 
good or bad, and come to facts. Those parts of 
Italy which are most unquestioning in their allegi- 
ance even to the temporal authority of the Church 
are those in which ignorance, poverty, bad highways, 
and violence are most common. 

In Germany the Roman Catholic states are in 
general the least progressive. Holland which threw 
off the domination of Spain, and with it the tyranny 
of the Church, has become an industrious and pro- 
sperous country, which, moreover, in proportion to 
population has contributed nobly to science. Spain 
once the proud mistress of the world, famous for 
the romantic brilliancy of her sons as well as for the 
fierce persecutions of the Inquisition, has gradually 
sunk in the scale of the nations, and, proudest of 
empires, has passed through humiliation yet to 
humiliation. Portugal, which once divided with 
Spain the spoils of the ocean, the glorious land of 
Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Albuquerque, and 
Camoens, descended step by step in misery. At 
length by an eftort she has flung off the incubus of a 
thousand years, and a new day of hope is dawning. 
The Republic has many shortcomings ; these are the 
legacy of a corrupt regime. Let us never forget in 
criticising the present position of Portugal that the 
Monarchy, and, through the Monarchy, the temporal 
powers of the Church ruled Portugal for centuries. 
The misery, the incapacity, the ignorance, which 
critics of the Republic find, rise up like ghastly spectres 
to accuse the Royal house. 

The French nation, which of all the so-called Latin 
races has shown in modern days the highest intel- 



132 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

lectual vigour, has thrown off the control of the 
Church. France has had many difficulties to con- 
tend with, both internal and external ; these are 
mainly the legacy of the Empire of Napoleon III. 
That was a regime such as a Rome loves, an incap- 
able sovereign under the influence of his consort, 
that consort a beautiful woman, fascinating in social 
intercourse, charitable and kind, but dominated by 
the priests. That was the regime under which 
disaster was provoked by an arrogant bearing un- 
supported by adequate force, when the beautiful 
Empress, seeing in the holocaust of a nation the sole 
chance of saving the dynasty, clapped her little hands 
in joy at " Ma guerre ; " and when a profligate court, 
inspired by the fiddlings of Offenbach's music, danced 
to damnation. 

Such is the inheritance on which the Republic has 
erected its magnificent record. And in France itself 
it is precisely in those parts which are still most 
responsive to the temporal power of Rome, as in 
Bretagne, that backwardness and misery most prevail. 

And what of Ireland, is Ireland prosperous and 
happy? I have heard the answer made that 
material prosperity is not all, and as opposed to the 
" materialism " of successful, or at least wealthy, 
nations, we are asked to oppose the spirituality of 
the poorer. The argument might be valid if it had 
any real meaning, but I have seen too much of 
misery, of defeat, of ignorance, to believe that these 
are great factors of any superior qualities of the soul. 

I remember once in a distinguished assembly when 
the question of France was being discussed, hearing 
a politician say : " What I can't stand about the 
French is their want of spirituality/' I was amused, 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 133 

though disconcerted, for an atmosphere savouring 
less of spiritual ichor than spirituous liquor accom- 
panied the words. And I reflected on the great and 
noble minds whom I had known in France, men of 
whom Pasteur and Henri Poincare are types, great 
thinkers devoted to the advancement of science, 
great artists like Rodin upholding a high ideal of art, 
great writers like Anatole France displaying for us 
a delicate wit that we might the better know and 
savour the truth, great pioneers of the African ex- 
pansion, great statesmen winning for France security 
and power, great soldiers content to shed their blood 
in the defence of liberty ; I question what then is this 
" spirituality " which compensates for the loss of these 
splendid examples, which hidesitself insuch unexpected 
conditions, and disguises itself in forms and manners 
in which it is so difficult to recognise the higher life. 

But do the rulers of Rome themselves believe in 
the high value of this spirituality ? They have 
always shown a singular preference for the favour 
of material England. Not long ago in the House of 
Commons I heard this declaration of an experienced 
Parliamentarian, who reposes himself in the bosom of 
the Church, and thereby makes his seat secure ; he 
said in effect — for I cannot reproduce either the force 
of his utterance or the sapid strength of his ver- 
nacular — that Rome would at any time sacrifice the 
interests of Ireland to please her English friends. 
If any one doubts this, then he has either not read, 
or he has misread, history. 

I will not revert to the old story of the delivery of 
Ireland to England's care by the Bull of Adrian IV. 
In modern days there have been a few memorable 
occasions when the Vatican has intervened deter- 



134 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

minedly in Irish political affairs, and in each in- 
stance unfortunately. In 1814 the Veto question, 
as it is known in Irish history, arose. The essential 
of the business was that in consideration of certain 
worldly and very material advantages and also for 
the sake of Emancipation, Irish Bishops would be 
recognised and nominated subject to the approval 
of the British Government. The Church was willing 
to enter into this dishonourable bargain, but the 
people supported by a few bishops in Ireland and 
by O'Connell protested. On this occasion the saying 
found birth: Our religion from Rome, our politics 
from Home. 

Nearly seventy years afterwards, in 1883, Rome 
endeavoured to discredit the Parnell Testimonial — 
that is to say, the subscriptions of the Irish people 
destined to enable Parnell to carry on his campaign. 
Before the Church had intervened the tribute had 
hung fire ; from that moment it showed all the vigour 
of a great popular movement carried enthusiastically 
to success. 

Again Rome intervened to suppress the Plan of 
Campaign in 1888, and again its efforts were futile. 1 

1 Pope Adrian IV was not the only Pontiff who made sport of 
Ireland's rights in order to please the English. Pope Alexander III 
authorised the annexation of Ireland, and- Pope John XXII aided 
Edward I in the same direction. 

Pitt had the majority of the Bishops on his side in his policy of the 
Union. England during the past century has never lacked at the 
Vatican some sort of secret ambassador or go-between ; and that the 
Church has always regarded Ireland as a mere pawn in the game is 
evident from its action at critical moments of the Nationalist cam- 
paign. 

I for one am not quite reassured by the fact that on three notable 
occasions the Irish people stood up against the dictation of the Pope, 
for the recurrence of such cases proves rather the persistence of 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 135 

Here already we have three important occasions 
when the liberties of the Irish people were at stake, 

control. The affair of the Veto was so discreditable to the Church that 
once it had been presented in its true colours to the view of the nation 
it fell under popular resentment. It was in January 1815 in Dublin 
that O'Connell cried : " I would as soon receive my politics from 
Stamboul as from Rome. ... I deny the doctrine that the Pope has 
any temporal authority directly or indirectly in Ireland." 

In 1883 the Vatican's condemnation of the Parnell Testimonial 
caused it to mount from £7,000 to £40,000 a month. 

In 1888 the opposition of the Vatican to the Plan of Campaign was 
set in motion, it is believed, by the influence of the Duke of Norfolk 
and other English Tories. 

At a meeting of the Catholic members of the Irish party at the 
Mansion House in Dublin, the following resolution was accepted : 

That while unreservedly acknowledging as Catholics the 

spiritual jurisdiction of the Holy See, we, as guardians, in common 

with our brother Irish representatives of other creeds, of those 

civil liberties which our Catholic forefathers have resolutely 

defended, feel bound solemnly to reassert that Irish Catholics 

can recognise no right in the Holy See to interfere with the Irish 

people in the management of their political affairs. 

Strong speeches in support of this resolution were delivered by Mr. 

Thomas Sexton, then Lord Mayor of Dublin, and members of Parliament 

including Messrs. Dillon, John Redmond, T. Healy, and W. O'Brien. 

These are the instances in which the Irish people, replying to 
peculiarly audacious attacks, have faced round and driven in the 
outposts of Rome. I would feel that the argument was better if we 
did not boast so triumphantly of successes where defeat would have 
been ignominy, and if, as I hope to see, Irishmen in every day of their 
ordinary lives were managing their own affairs without troubling 
about Rome or the Parish Priest at all. Am I an enemy to Ireland 
in speaking thus ? God forbid ! In that way lies Ireland's destiny. 
Meanwhile, behold here a fort, cupolaed and armed, that dominates 
the line of march : 

Speaking at Claremorris on the 24th February 1909, the Roman 
Catholic Archbishop of Tuam uttered these words : 

I say now that the people of Ireland are not fit for Home 
Rule, and I have no hesitation in saying that until they know 
how to conduct themselves — I saw it in Dublin, and I saw it 
in Cork, and I am ashamed to say that I saw it in the West of 
Ireland, . . , 



136 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

and where, no matter what passions were aroused at 
the time nor what violence resulted, we see that the 
movements in question were in the way of pro- 
gress ; yet, with curious fatality, the rulers of Rome 
have planted themselves again and again in the 
path of Domocracy, and cried: "Thus far, and no 
farther!" 1 

1 In regard to democracy I quote the words of Mr. George Bernard 
Shaw who under the guise of whimsical fancies has brought home to 
British minds some of the truths of modern advance. Writing in the 
" Christian Globe " of 22nd February 1912, Mr. Shaw says : 

There is one force and one only that Rome cannot face ; and 
that force is Democracy. In democratic America, Irish Roman 
Catholics desert their Church by tens of thousands. In oligarchic 
Castle-ruled Ireland the bitterest enemies of the priests would die 
rather than desert in the face of the enemy. In France the 
Roman Church cannot get even common justice. In Italy the 
Pope is a prisoner in his own Palace. In Spain, priests and nuns 
depend on police and military protection for their personal safety. 
In Ireland alone the priest is powerful, thanks to the hatred, 
terror, faithlessness and folly of the Protestants who stand be- 
tween him and his natural enemy, Democracy. 
Another keen and sympathetic observer, Mr. Sydney Brooks, 
writes in a somewhat similar strain to the " Fortnightly Review." 
I quote a reference : 

While doing homage to the qualities of individual Bishops and 
priests, he deplores the extensive influence of Clericalism in Irish 
secular affairs. Clericalism in Ireland " does not stand, and 
never has stood, for real Nationalism or real democracy." Mr. 
Brooks holds strongly the conviction that Home Rule will be 
inimical to clericalism. 
If by Clericalism he means the influence of the highest grades of the 
Hierarchy, I should be here inclined to agree with him. 

Michael Davitt said : " Make no mistake about it, my Lord Bishop 
of Limerick, Democracy is going to rule in these countries." Mr. F. 
Sheehy Skeflfington, who has written a biography of the great demo- 
crat, says : " Davitt saw that there was no chance of any great 
advance in Ireland, either intellectual, industrial, or social, until the 
whole educational system had been reformed root and branch and 
the people placed in control instead of the clergy." 
Even in Spain the arbitrary injustice of the Vatican in matters 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 137 

Recently during critical periods of the debates on 
the Home Rule Bill, the Pope launched two decrees, 

outside its realm has provoked a tumult. In a Reuter's telegram 
from Madrid, dated 13th June 1910, we read : 

The Papal Nuncio yesterday handed to the Prime Minister a 
note from the Vatican protesting against the Royal Decree 
authorising the use of outward symbols by religious denomina- 
tions not belonging to the Roman Catholic faith. 
It is fair to say that this does not entirely represent the cause of dis- 
pute. The Spanish Prime Minister, Sefior Canalejas, viewing with 
alarm the spread of monasteries, put into force a Royal Decree of 
1902 and an Act of 1887, dealing with religious orders. Speaking at 
San Sebastian on 29th July 1910 the Prime Minister said : 

It seems that a gust of revolutionary wind is blowing. Many 
passions have been let loose, but we are prepared to control 
them. 
The Minister of the Interior, speaking on the attitude of the 
Vatican, expressed himself substantially in these terms : 

" It is wrongly believed at Rome that Spain is a country of 
fanatics. When the Vatican realises that we are no longer in 
the middle of the last century it is to be hoped that it will cease 
to treat us on a different footing to the other great nations." 
About the same period the Pope has issued an Encyclical, which, 
according to the text published in the " Tablet," of London, was 
directed against heretics and those who "under the name of evan- 
gelical liberty " perverted discipline. This Encyclical led the German 
Chancellor to make an official protest to the Vatican. 

The King of Saxony, who is a Catholic, summoned his Ministers of 
State on 13th June 1910, and speaking of his desire to preserve re- 
ligious peace in the country, said that : 

All the more did he regret that his efforts were thwarted by 
such sharp attacks on the Evangelical Lutheran Church as those 
contained in the recent Papal Encyclical, and he intended, there- 
fore, to send an autograph letter to the Pope. 
Italy has fared no better than Spain and Germany. 

In the same year 1910 we read in a telegram from Milan to the 
" Daily Chronicle " : 

A crisis in Italian Catholicism has been reached. The twen- 
tieth national Catholic Congress closed to-day at Modena, after 
five days' spirited discussion, in which the Modernist tendency 
represented by the Young Christian Democratic party triumphed 
all along the line, 



138 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

both of which tended to wreck the fortunes of the 
measure. The Ne Temere decree had for its effect to 

In consequence of the great victory of the progressive Catholic 
forces at Bologna in 1903, under the presidency of that outspoken 
democrat, the late Cardinal Svampa, the Vatican forthwith 
dissolved their organisation and has vetoed the reassembly of 
the congress for seven years past. Recently Pope Pius X gave 
permission for the holding of the Modena congress for the pur- 
pose of reviewing the state of the Catholic forces after the long 
series of instructions issued during his pontificate regarding the 
attitude to be followed on social and political questions. The 
result has caused such grave displeasure in Rome that the clerical 
organs announce to-night that his Holiness will publish a note of 
censure forbidding future congresses of the Catholic laity, as he 
has done already those of the clergy. 
France was not lost sight of by the Vatican, for in 1910 the Pope 
directed an attack not against the " infidel politicians," but against 
one who regarded it as his mission in life to win France back to the 
Faith. This was M. Marc Saugnier, an ex-officer of the army, who, 
imagining himself a modern Loyola, forsook the sword for the pen 
and proceeded to enrol the youth of France under his banner. Un- 
fortunately for his propaganda he was not only a devoted Catholic 
but also a Republican. M. Marc Saugnier founded a periodical called 
" Le Sillon " and fervently preached Catholicity and Democracy ; 
later he helped to found a paper with the terrible title, " La Demo- 
cratic." The Vatican issued a decree condemning all these proceed- 
ings. M. Marc Saugnier, who repudiated the doctrines of Modernism, 
bowed his head in submission. 

More recently, towards the end of 1913, the Vatican came into 
collision in France with one still more closely connected with the 
Church — the Abbe Lemire. It is true that the Abbe was disobedient to 
his Bishop, but the sole cause of the quarrel of the Bishop with the 
Abb6 was that the Abbe continued to sit in the Chamber of Deputies 
as one who had accepted the Republic. A certain explanation of all 
these proceedings may be found in the syllabus of Pius IX issued in 
1854: 

Among the " errors " denounced by the Pope are Socialism, 
Communism, Bible Societies, and Clerico-Liberal Societies (Sec- 
tion 4). 
In Belgium the great European War was preluded by a struggle 
against the de Broqueville Government in its endeavour to increase 
the strength of the Church in the field of education. The teaching 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 139 

declare marriages between Catholics and Protestants 
null and void, and to treat the parties, lawfully 

in the Catholic schools upholds the old spirit of Conservatism, and it 
is determinedly directed against Democracy. 

The opposition to the Church in Portugal sprang mainly from the 
game order of ideas. For centuries the Braganza line ruled Portugal 
as faithful servitors of the Church. The Portuguese Monarchs in their 
decadence were amongst the most wretched of all the royal lines which 
have mocked civilisation. The fairest land of Europe under their 
regime became the home of oppression, ignorance, and misery. And 
when the people overborne with burdens rose at length in their wrath 
and struck out, however wildly, towards a new system, the Church as 
usual resolutely planted itself athwart the march to Freedom. 

Is that all ? No. In the " Sydney Bulletin " of 19th January 
1911, I find a cartoon representing the late Cardinal Moran threatening 
the Labour Party in Australia. The note beneath the cartoon reads : 
The Cardinal : " Submission or Death ? " 
The L.P. : " But you've forgotten one alternative." 
The Cardinal : " What's that ? " 

The L.P. : " That I'll merely wish you good day, and go on 
with my work." 
The Pope in the midst of these difficulties found time to consider 
and condemn the philosophy of M. Henri Bergson as indicated in 
" l'Evolution Crea trice." He declares that : 

In the presence of false theories of this new Bergsonian phil- 
osophy, which seeks to shatter grand fundamental principles and 
truths, it is necessary to unmask the poisonous error of philosophic 
Modernism. It is the more destructive by reason of its sugar- 
coated, subtle, seductive nature. 
I am not a partisan of the philosophy of M. Bergson, and indeed I 
have attacked his whole system as lacking the essentials of a true 
philosophy : a deep and well-laid foundation, on which by cogent 
and progressive argument the superstructure may be built. But in 
the Pope's pronouncement there is no suggestion of argument at all. 
He objects to the tendency of Bergson's teaching, and he adopts the 
same means as were used by his predecessors to silence Galileo, 
Columbus, Vesalius ; he solemnly pronounces it to be false, and he 
seeks to shatter it by violent language. This is on a par with the 
decree prohibiting students for the priesthood from reading the news- 
papers. 

Coming to Ireland I have read carefully the most recent Lenten 
Pastorals of the Bishops. Some of these are directed against Socialism. 



140 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

married according to the forms prescribed by statute, 
as living in illicit cohabitation. This, properly 

Again, I am not a Socialist, but in the name of liberty and com- 
mon sense I ask, what right has a Bishop to dictate to any man 
in Ireland his opinion regarding forms of Government or of social 
reconstruction ? 

Some of the Bishops express the desire that the National University 
may become simply a Catholic University. Cardinal Logue speaking 
of rival institutions says : 

But we are told that in some of these seats of learning positive 
guarantees are given that there will be no tampering with the 
faith of those who frequent them. These guarantees, no doubt, 
are honestly given, and honestly kept, at least not intentionally 
violated. But what of the atmosphere of the place ? What of 
casual remarks unintentionally let drop by professors, who, by 
their learning, often by their kindly, genial, sympathetic bearing, 
naturally exercise a powerful influence over the minds of their 
pupils ? 
Many of the Pastorals deal with the question of " Immoral Litera- 
ture." No responsible man can be on the side of immoral literature, 
for that means also stupid literature. But after having mobilised 
public opinion against Immoral Literature, the attempt is being made 
to utilise the same forces against Democratic Literature. It must 
have come as a shock to many a staunch English Home Ruler to find 
that " Reynolds's Newspaper " was confiscated in bundles and burnt 
in the streets of Dublin and Limerick under the plea of Immoral 
Literature. Nor does the process of intimidation stop there. Every 
kind of literature likely to weaken faith has been forbidden. The 
Bishop of Dromore says : 

The reading matter, if not directly opposed to Christian doctrine, 
is sure to be un-Catholic in tone and sentiment. 
In this case he is speaking of publications of low intellectual quality ; 
but we have seen the same argument applied to the subtle works of 
the learned Bergson ; and it has been, and in places still is, employed 
to denounce the study of Darwin's theories. What sort of atmosphere 
are we in here ? A phrase that often rises to the lips of Irishmen 
is that of " insulting to our intelligence." Is it not insulting to the 
intelligence of Irishmen to treat them throughout life as mentally 
deficient, and to say, for example, that no Nationalist in Ireland shall 
read " Reynolds's Newspaper," the staunchest of all the champions of 
Home Rule in England, the pages of which are enhanced, moreover, 
by the contributions of the eloquent T.P. ? 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 141 

understood, seems to me to have been a permissible 
exercise of the authority of the Church, if the recog- 
nition or the disallowance of marriage should have 
effect only as coming within the discipline of the 
Church. In other words any association whatever of 
men and women, voluntarily formed, has a right to 
make its own rules, even capricious and retrograde 
rules, and to say, no one who disobeys these rules 
shall continue to be a member of this association. 
But no association, and least of all a Christian Church, 
has the right to enforce obedience to those rules by 
influencing people by spiritual fears and then inter- 
fering with them in their mundane affairs. The 
notable M'Cann case was debated in the House of 
Commons, but as usual in that assembly the duty of 
eliciting the truth became secondary to the play of 
party politics. 1 A charge which made considerable 

Mr. Bart Kennedy, a travelled man and original thinker, of a genius 
all his own, writing in March 1905 said : 

Ireland is under the shadow of an insolent and arrogant priest 
power, the heel of the priest is on her neck. 

. . . My attention was first drawn to the power of priests and 
the way thev use it here in Galway. It is not too much to say 
that the people here are in positive terror of the priests. They 
can call neither their lives nor their minds their own. When they 
speak of the priests they speak in whispers. Even people who 
are not Catholics are afraid. It is dreadful to be in a place where 
people are afraid to speak. The priests rule everything and inter- 
fere in everything. The hand of God as represented by the priests 
falls heavily upon Galway. And these priests stand high above 
criticism — no one shall dare to speak to the hierarchy of Ireland. 
It is serenely above all other judgment but its own. 
And who that reads what is here written, reads steadily and with 
eyes unafraid, can believe that I have not established my assertion 
that in the world of politics (for in this book I deal with no other) 
the power of Rome stands sheer against Democracy ? 

1 In the M'Cann case the speeches of Mr. J. H. Campbell, K.C., and 
Mr. Joseph Devlin were both characteristic and both good. They 



142 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

impression was followed by a speech which swept the 
matter out of sight to the stirring music of applause. 
I was far from satisfied myself ; and had there been 
many such cases, had the matter been pressed as 
was apparently the first intention of Rome, the 
cause of Home Rule would have received a damaging 
blow. 

The following Decree of the Pope, Motu Proprio, 
was a more serious matter. It ordained, amongst 
other things, that no Catholic should bring an action 
against a priest, to recover damages at the ordinary 
law courts, under pain of excommunication. 1 It is 
difficult in these years of grace to enter into the 
frame of mind of one who would consider such a 

may profitably be read by students of Parliamentary oratory in the 
pages of Hansard. I will not, however, enter into the M'Cann case 
further, for when any of these matters become questions of party 
warfare it is difficult to form, or to persuade others to accept, an 
equitable judgment. 

1 The Motu Proprio Decree has been the most sensational of the 
recent pronouncements of Rome. A Home Rule publication to which 
I have more than once referred thus disposes of the matter : 

THE "MOTU PROPRIO" DECREE 

After Ne Temere comes Motu Proprio. The latter is not a 
new Decree, and it is not an exacting Decree ; it is merely a 
definition of one of the phases in a Decree that is as old as cen- 
turies. It originally asserted " the immunity of clerics," which 
no clergyman now claims ; but it reappeared in a modified form 
in 1869. The Bull in the modified form has therefore been 
nominally in force for over forty years, and no human being has 
been able to point to a case of one Protestant or even one Catholic, 
having been damnified under the Decree to the extent of one 
penny during all that period. The people of England never 
heard of the Decree although it was reissued nearly half a century 
ago, and they would not have heard of it to-day if the Tory 
Party had not conceived the idea of using it (as the " Pall Mall " 
puts it) "as a battering-ram against Home Rule." That fact, 
in itself, shows the utter hollowness of the whole outcry. 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 143 

Decree as just and acceptable. Can any Irishman, 
placing his love of country above all else, believe that 
this Decree was intended to aid the Irish cause ? 1 

I beg leave, however, to reject this argument. It is true that the 
Decree is an old one, but in a letter written to the " Freeman's 
Journal," and dated 29th December 1911, Archbishop Walsh speaks 
of the " Decree recently issued by his Holiness." Moreover, if it was 
not intended by the Vatican to apply to Ireland, why promulgate it 
in Ireland ? I think we are face to face with one of those indefensible 
manoeuvres of Rome, such as we have already seen so often, to check 
the progress of Home Rule, and to defeat it by prejudice. 

After reading two long letters of the Archbishop of Dublin I am not 
at all easy in my mind, however willingly I pay homage to his powers 
of casuistry. I believe on the contrary that all Nationalists should 
take seriously to heart the words in a letter of a good Home Ruler, 
the Rev. H. C. Morton, who writes to the " Daily Chronicle " on 2nd 
January 1912 : 

Dr. Walsh's " explanations " in no sense hide the glaring facts 
that Rome in 1911 has reaffirmed that all Catholics can be called 
upon by the Vatican to hold clerical offenders free from prosecu- 
tion in civil courts, and neither to make laws which the Vatican 
judges deem to be injurious to the interests of the Roman Church, 
on pain of excommunication. 

Many Liberals wavering on Home Rule will be decided by this 

Decree, and only one thing can save the Home Rule cause, viz. : 

a definite and official disavowal by the Nationalist Party of the 

whole of this monstrous claim on the part of the Papacy. 

Perhaps the ostensible indifference of the Irish people has supplied 

a sufficient answer to the Rev. Mr. Morton's demand, though I think 

it would have been better had we on our part replied in a clear cut, 

unequivocal, refusal to accept the dictation of the Pope in this regard. 

My eye falls on a newspaper report of a case in which Alderman 

Meade, ex-Lord Mayor of Cork, obtained substantial damages against 

the Rev. Father John Ahem for a slander involving the Alderman 

and his sister-in-law. The verdict, however, dates from 13th June, 

1910. If later it might have had more significance in regard to the 

redoubtable Motu Proprio Decree. 

1 The statement that the priests in general place their religion first 
and their country second will I think be disputed by no one, for they 
themselves will assert it and will hold this doctrine as their dearest 
pride. 

I quote as typical an extract from a letter, dated 26th August 1910, 



144 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

It is precisely one of those acts that furnish the pre- 
text of Freemasonry and of Orange lodges. Had the 

from Father John Curry, parish priest of Drogheda, to the " Free- 
man's Journal " : 

Lord Justice Cherry has spoiled his very interesting speech in 
Waterford by the enunciation in it of a most unworthy and un- 
christian principle. Says his Lordship : 

" Every Swiss, whether he is a Protestant or Catholic, is first 
of all a Swiss, and his first duty is towards his country, and I ask 
you, whether you are Protestant or Catholic — and I know there 
are both here to-day — to feel first that you are Irishmen, and 
that your first duty is to your country, and you can do con- 
sistently with it what you think is right for the promotion of 
religion." 

The principle thus announced I regard as objectionable to 
Catholics and Protestants, and I venture humbly but vehemently 
to protest against it, and against the dissemination of it by the 
learned and well-meaning Judge. Individually and collectively, 
we are bound to place our religion before all earthly considera- 
tions. 
The spirit, so commendable from the priests' point of view, of subor- 
dinating everything to religion nevertheless gives a handle to the 
enemies of Home Rule. The following extract is from a debate in the 
House of Commons of 6th May, 1912 ; Mr. J. H. Campbell, K.C., is 
speaking : 

Three months ago the Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh was 
able to declare that the genius of the Roman Catholic race had 
circumvented the machinations of the English Nonconformists, 
and to-day he was glad to see and to know that this University 
was practically exclusively Catholic. 

Mb. Stephen Gwynn : Will the right hon. gentleman give 
the words of the quotation because he is now misrepresenting 
what Cardinal Logue said ? 

Mr. Campbell : I am speaking exactly what he said. I have 
not got the exact words by me. 

Mb. S. Gwynn : What Cardinal Logue said was that the Catholic 
people will make this University Catholic. 

Mb. Campbell: That is exactly it. He said, "To-day it is 
almost exclusively Catholic, and in a very short time it will be 
exclusively Catholic," and he said that was done " in spite of the 
so-called safeguards and guarantees of the Nonconformist con- 
science." 



PEIESTS IN POLITICS 145 

Irish people shown a disposition to accept such a 
Decree in slavish obedience then not only would 
Home Rule have gone by the board, but every up- 
holder of freedom and justice would have acquiesced 
in that conclusion. 

I do not believe that the Irish people are intolerant. 
But before discussing that point a little let us hear a 
word on intolerance in general. Voltaire said that 
England was the country which had a hundred 
religions and only one sauce. Now all these hundred 
religions, in as far as they mutually contradict each 
other, cannot be all true. There is nothing in that 
bare fact, however, to indicate that they may not 
all be false. We find, moreover, sects of which the 
origin is recent, such as the Peculiar People, the 
Plymouth Brethren, the Countess of Huntingdon 
persuasion, the Swedenborgians, the Mormons, the 
Johanna Southcote's persuasion, the Upstanding 

If, however, this be considered as attaching an undue importance 
to the words of our opponents, let the following be read from one of 
the most experienced and strenuous of the champions of Home Rule. 
I take the report from the " Daily Chronicle " : 

Mr. John Dillon, M.P., made an important speech on Saturday 
on the right of the Catholic laity to exercise their own judgment 
in political matters. The occasion was a dinner given at the 
Holborn Restaurant to Mr. Charles Diamond in recognition of 
his services to the Irish National Cause. 

Mr. Dillon said that if Catholics allowed political direction to 
be taken out of the hands of political lay leaders then the Catholic 
schools and institutions would be reduced to the level that they 
were being reduced to in France. 

In the Dumfries election the priests undertook to deliver the 
Catholic vote without allowing the laity to express an opinion. 
Mr. Dillon described this action as an outrage and an insult. In 
the High Peak election an even worse spectacle was witnessed. 
There Canon Hawkins informed Catholics that they must vote 
for " My dear Profumo " without exercising their judgment as 
to the policy they should pursue. 

10 



146 IRELAND : VITAL HOUE 

Glassites, as well as those more dignified by antiquity, 
Mohammedans, Buddhists, or Zoroastrians. Par- 
nell, I am told, was one of the Plymouth Brethren. 
The famous scientist Faraday was a Sandemanian, 
and the great Newton beclouded his fame by his 
attempts to interpret the Hebrew prophecies accord- 
ing to the data of modern science. 

Yet in these matters who is to be the arbiter ? The 
most childlike and simple beliefs, the most repugnant 
and inconceivable, have been equally held ; and 
over all this province hangs the remark of a deep and 
candid philosopher, Locke, who said that there is 
no error that the human race has not at some time 
or other adopted. 

But let us come to the believers, and wrestle with 
them for tolerance. I know the case of an old 
servant maid whose faith was impregnable. For 
heretics of all kinds she had but one fate — eternal 
damnation, though in her vernacular it sounded more 
domestic and familiar. When she was told of the 
greatness of a certain illustrious lady, a pillar of the 
Protestant Church, whose material power, at least, 
had visibly grown, and whose earthly prestige re- 
sounded throughout the world, she had but one 
reply: "She'll roast." This was said without em- 
phasis, simply with that quiet satisfaction which 
comes from a sense of inevitable happenings blended 
with a feeling of justice. 

Hell, we know, is one of the proudest possessions 
of our race, for we have fought for it with impetuous 
courage and fanatical zeal, transcending the spirit 
of devotion shown in the defence of our hearths or 
in the opening of paths to freedom. But that even 
being granted, is it not enough ? To roast is serious, 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 147 

and eternity is, mildly speaking, a long time. Now 
let the most fanatical believer place his hand among 
burning coals for a second or two ; then let him 
think of the agony prolonged, prolonged so far that 
the senses reel in the effort to conceive the duration. 
Is our believer still unsatisfied with the punishment 
of heretics ? Does he wish to add to this the loss of 
a milch cow, or the deprivation of a seat on the 
Urban Council ? Really, this is not doing justice 
to himself. We begin to suspect the unshakable 
quality of his faith. Faith must be more than 
adamant, or it is already precarious. And the man 
who changes hell for boycott at a country store is 
himself far on the slope of perdition. Cling to hell, 
if you will ; but do not belittle hell ; let hell suffice. 
" Toleration " is a word that has seen too much 
service. What is the position of many reasonable 
men in regard to it ? That an infant is born into 
the world, stamped Catholic or Protestant as by a 
law of nature, and thenceforth for ever determined 
in his destiny ; that these religions, which have 
grown up in human memory, must be accepted each 
by its devotees as eternal ; that these beliefs that 
have come to man by thought must never be sub- 
mitted again to thought ; that when difference of 
opinion becomes accentuated by ephemeral politics 
the religion of Christ enjoins on us not to cleave to 
fellowship, but to cleave our fellow from chin to 
chine, or, in these gentler days, to ruin him in busi- 
ness, and that when we refrain from doing so, we 
are entitled to assume airs of spiritual pride and 
vaunt our " toleration." A pest on such toleration ! 
Ireland will never be happy until it has forgotten 
that wretched word, and until we recognise that, 



148 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

claiming the right to practise our own religion in 
peace we have no right to interfere in any degree 
with the religion, or even what we may deem to be 
the want of religion, of another. We do want tolera- 
tion as the goal ; we want freedom and justice. 

I do not think Irishmen as a rule are inclined to 
molest others simply on account of their religion, 
but also I do not think the whole problem is summed 
up in these terms. In the newspapers and on the 
platforms the battle of Home Rule has waged round 
the question of toleration. Wilful misrepresentation 
has come into play. I have known the county 
(Clare) of which I am one of the representatives in 
Parliament held up to obloquy on that score. It 
would be easy by giving a list of offices, both under 
the control of the County Council and the other local 
councils, to show that though the great majority of 
the members of these councils are Catholics, they 
have frequently appointed Protestants to important 
and lucrative positions. But there is evidence more 
decisive of the state of feeling in County Clare, and 
that is to be found in the situation of Protestant 
shopkeepers in the large towns. Some of these are 
the most prosperous citizens in the locality, yet they 
all depend on the support of their Catholic neighbours. 
We have here a sure test. For whereas a public 
appointment is made under the scrutiny of the 
whole country, and the candidates and their quali- 
fications are known to all, yet a shopkeeper depends 
from day to day on his customers, and the least ill- 
wind, if it became general, would suffice for his ruin, 
and that ruin would be silently accomplished. * 

1 With respect to the attitude of the people of Ireland towards 
" toleration," the case of County Clare, in which the population is 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 149 

In this book I desire above all things to respect 
the truth in what I have observed, for this reasoning 

98 per cent. Catholic, may be regarded with interest. Out of a great 
mass of testimony I select for the sake of brevity extracts from three 
letters. They were written in reply to the statements of a few mem- 
bers of the Clare Unionist Club, Mr. H. V. McNamara, Colonel O. C. 
Westropp, and the Rev. Mr. McLaurin, who, at a meeting of the 
Holywood Unionist Club, in County Down, painted a highly charged 
picture of the condition of Clare. The first letter I quote is from a 
Protestant landlord of County Clare, Mr. R. J. Stacpoole. It is 
dated 5th October 1911 : 

I have read a report of the Unionist meeting at Holywood, and 
what was said there by my fellow Clare Unionists. In justice to 
the people of Clare I consider that I, a Protestant, am in duty 
bound to make public the fact, that during that part of my 
lifetime I spent in this county, no Roman Catholic has ever in 
any way interfered with, or upbraided me, on the subject of my 
religion — and I know others who will say the same. 

Religious intolerance, as far as I can gather, unfortunately 
does exist in some parts of Ireland, but surely one side is as 
much open to blame as the other, and why not strive to put an 
end to it instead of to foment it ? I can only add that I think 
it the greatest pity that the subject of religion should be brought 
into political matters. 
The second is from the Secretary to the County Council, a Pro- 
testant. The letter appeared in the " Clare Record " of 14th October 
1911: 

Adverting to previous letters written on above subject, I would 
like to state publicly as a county official of fourteen years' stand- 
ing, that the word religion has never been mentioned to me 
officially or otherwise by any Roman Catholic in this county. 
The Clare County Council, who are the premier authority, have 
had, since the passing of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 
the deciding of two elections in which Protestant candidates 
presented themselves for election. These two candidates were 
both elected, which does not go to show religious intolerance on 
their part. 

I am proud to state that I have as many sincere and true 
friends Roman Catholics as Protestants. 

If we would only judge our fellow man by his works and not 
by his religion it would be a much happier country to live in. 
The third dated loth November 1911 came from Mr. H. B. Harris, 



150 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

has often occurred to me amid all the tactics, 
diplomacy, and so-called cleverness of politicians, 

J.P., an old and highly respected Protestant gentleman, since de- 
ceased : 

I fear Ireland is becoming almost intolerable just now, especi- 
ally South and West, owing to these discussions on religious 
intolerance. If there were any justification for such a cry one 
would not feel so much, but residing as Protestants in the County 
Clare, in the midst of a Catholic population, we are living evi- 
dence of their good sense, good-nature, and kindly disposition. 
My best friends, outside my own family circle, are Catholics, and 
it is, indeed, painful for me to meet my neighbours with this 
charge of intolerance appearing in the public press from day to 
day, and made by those who should know better, and who are 
themselves recipients of much kindness and consideration, and 
from whom they derive their income in nearly all cases. 

There are also hundreds of business people scattered all over 
Ireland who could not succeed without the patronage of their 
Catholic neighbours, and in districts, too, where Catholics repre- 
sent even more than ninety-eight out of every hundred of the 
population, so that if Catholics are intolerant they don't display 
it towards Protestants, because were they to do so Protestantism 
would long have ceased to exist in the South of Ireland. And having 
such a vast area as there is in Clare in the occupation of Catholics 
we still enjoy life, free from annoyances, meeting with our Catholic 
neighbours in fair or market, dealing in this, that, or other shop 
without any friction, sitting together on the bench to administer 
the law, and all meeting at marriage functions, christenings, and 
funerals, just as if we belonged to the same church, giving honour 
to whom honour is due, no matter what his or her creed or politics 
might be. 
These letters form an indication of the character of the people of 
Clare, but they do not dispose of the whole problem at large. Willing 
to hear all sides I read the following on " Irish Freedom," which a 
Tory publication describes as " the most able, truthful, and treason- 
able of the Home Rule Press " : 

No amount of tolerant speeches, no number of reasonable 

speeches, no acceptances of broad bases of nationalism, avail for 

an instant against the silent, practical riveting of sectarianism on 

the nation which goes on. 

It is not enough, I repeat, to " tolerate " Protestants, and it is 

already disquieting when a man vaunts this toleration. There was 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 151 

that the most astute policy is to choose a good cause, 
and hold it up to the daylight even though in this 

a time when a good man might vaunt himself for not burning witches ; 
but the existence of this virtuous restraint was a symptom of a state 
of mind which we have ceased to respect. So it is with " toleration." 

Before I became a Member of Parliament I was an author, and a 
student of science. I had suffered imprisonment for my champion- 
ship of liberty. Nevertheless, and in spite of all the annoyances 
which a man of thought endures in a realm haunted by mediaeval 
ghosts, yet on the whole, bearing these matters as a human burden in 
our life of to-day, I felt fairly free. I acted freely, talked freely, 
wrote freely ; my aspirations for Ireland were free. After my elec- 
tion, possibly because being more conspicuous, I began to feel the 
presence of invisible bars thwarting act, thought, and expression. 
This referred not only to politics, nor to matters ostensibly of ethics, 
or of philosophy ; I found the invisible chords infringing on my 
appreciation of letters, my love of art, my opinion of marriage, my 
study of physical science. I began to see a new depth in a saying 
which I once heard Rodin utter, that modern artists were generally 
inferior, because it took forty years to work through the incubus of 
false tradition. 

Has this anything to do directly with " toleration " ? Yes. For I 
maintain that every man, who is an upright and honest citizen, has a 
right to proceed about his work unmolested, without having to kow- 
tow to the authorities for a certificate of " toleration " ; and this 
should be true whether he be a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, or a 
Fire-worshipper. It should be true even of such a recalcitrant Catholic 
as described by Mr. W. P. Ryan in his " Pope's Green Isle" ; why should 
this man, toiling for the regeneration of Ireland, be forced to adopt 
the wiles of an intellectual apache hunted and haunted by Bishops ? 

Or to bring a case within everyday consideration. Suppose a 
Protestant be elected — as I am glad to find often in Clare — to any of 
the local Councils. And suppose this Protestant, or indeed any man, 
in any public capacity whatever — suppose such a man to criticise a 
priest, or even a category of priests, even perhaps with occasional 
lapses into injustice, what then ? That is a possibility which we poor 
politicians have to face every day of our lives. We generally ignore 
abuse, and meet argument by argument. Is that the attitude of the 
priests, of all the priests ? Do they not feel that if one is struck, the 
whole body must line up to his defence ; so that to attack some parish 
boss is virtually to attack the imposing array of the Hierarchy ? And 
what would be the position of a Protestant, who would take such a 



152 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

way the weaknesses of the position may at times be 
revealed. If knowing of a certain fallacious line of 
reasoning I remain a fervent Home Ruler, what 
fear have I of indicating what seems to me uncon- 
vincing ? Hence I have come to attach no great 
importance to the argument that because Protestant 
members sit for Catholic constituencies the fear of 
priests in politics is illusory. That bare fact, in itself, 
is evidence of little. In some cases it may prove 
that the priests are all-powerful ; for, as I have 
already stated, the defeat I suffered at my first elec- 
tion was altogether due to the influence of the priests, 
who, however, might have proudly boasted of their 
" toleration " since they had elected to represent 
them " a firm Protestant but doubtful Christian." 
If the Protestant be a stranger having no foothold 
in the constituency, and if he owe his election solely 
to the support of the priests, then it seems to me 
that the case may be even more disquieting than 
that of the invariable election of a Catholic. The 
only sure test of the absence of undue influence is 
when a candidate runs on popular Nationalist lines 
but nevertheless for some reason or other incurs the 
hostility of the great majority of the priests. Such 
conditions occurred at the Parnellite split, and un- 

stand and deliver such an attack ? I say that it is useless to suppose 
that even " toleration " is complete until such a man could count 
on meeting no other force than the force of argument, delivered 
publicly, and on public grounds. 

I recommend these considerations especially to Nationalist Irish- 
men. If such words be treated as hostile to any Irish cause, then I 
say that the spirit evinced, tried by the standards of civilisation itself, 
will bear with it the condemnation of that Irish cause. If these 
words be approved, then already by that fact a step will have been 
taken towards the greater glory of Ireland. 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 153 

fortunately the Parnellites were rarely successful. 1 
Whether there has been much change since then is 

1 In the days of the Parnellite split the " Westmeath Examiner " 
made itself obnoxious to the clergy. I find the following reference to 
the quarrel in the " Weekly Independent " of 17th February 1894 : 

The " Westmeath Examiner " is fighting a great battle for civil 
liberty, and liberty of the Press, under the very shadow of the 
bishop's palace in Mullingar. The article which it publishes in 
its defence against Dr. Nulty's unwarrantable and illogical attack 
is dignified and forcible ; whilst the extracts it gives from the 
bishop's denunciation — passages which even the tottering " Free- 
man " feared to publish — are enough to make men ask are we 
living in the age of Torquemada ? 

Who can believe it possible that such a pronouncement as this 
was made by Dr. Nulty ? Who can believe it possible that a 
bishop of the Catholic Church should pronounce the reading of 
the " Westmeath Examiner " a sin which called for the refusal 
of absolution ? Here are his words, as taken from the " Ex- 
aminer " : 

" As long as men continued to read this they were not fit sub- 
jects for the Sacraments. He is not, although he may believe 
he is. He may go to confession to strange priests, but a priest 
who knew his theology would not give absolution. If he did, the 
absolution is null and void, and certainly a priest could give 
absolution only to a penitent who is disposed, and any man who 
reads that newspaper after this condemnation could not be 
supposed to have contrition and the purpose of never offending 
God any more. As long as he continued the reading of that 
newspaper he cannot be forgiven." 
Not long afterwards appeared this paragraph : 

The Rev. Father Drum, Adm., of Mullingar, has declared 

officially that the reading of the " Westmeath Examiner " is a 

mortal sin — particularly in Mullingar. The Coercion Act created 

new crime. This was considered infamous. Father Drum 

creates a new sin. Mr. Hayden, the proprietor of the journal, is 

an estimable man. He has never written one word against faith 

or morals. He has only waged a relentless war against a rotten 

political policy. Yet, to read his paper is a mortal sin — especially 

in Mullingar. 

It should be observed that the " Weekly Independent " was at 

that time one of the most advanced of Nationalist newspapers, and 

that its editor was a Catholic. The editor of the " Westmeath Ex- 



154 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

a matter of opinion, there has not been much oppor- 
tunity of testing ; but I am inclined to think that 
we may assume progress in restricting the undue 
authority of the priests. 

Hitherto I have spoken of priests in a somewhat 
vague and general manner, as if they were all of a 
type. Nothing could be more false, however. I 
have known many to be men of ambition, others 
men of reflection, some even of saintly fervour. 
Moreover I have known them to speak of each other, 
and their human weakness, with freedom and 
piquancy. Let me attempt to sketch two or three 
pictures which may be taken as fair representations. 
Here is a priest, a young man, Father Raftery. He is 
tall, not intellectual, he has red hair, and green socks, 
and as he stoops to tie his boot lace he displays a 
lissom ease in his athletic frame that may make one 
fancy that as a " broth of a boy " he might have 
earned renown in the fistic ring. His eye is clear, 
his complexion good, as of one free from vices ; he 
does not oppress us with a manner of piety ; his 
conversation is cheerful, even humorous ; but he is 
a devout believer, a missionary at heart, his fervour ; 
however, showing in the kindness of manners, the 
gentleness of tone, the self-denying devotion to good, 
all of which qualities are reinforced by association 
with that superb physique. 

Add that such a young man may have come from 

aminer " was, I believe, and is still Mr. John Hayden, now a well- 
known member of the Irish Parliamentary Party. 

I am informed that after the death of the Bishop the attacks ceased, 
and have never been renewed. These attacks therefore responded 
less to eternal principle than to the political animus of certain priests, 
but that did not prevent them using in this temporal quarrel the 
authority derived from their spiritual office. 



PEIESTS IN POLITICS 155 

peasant stock, that his sympathies, his affections, 
his aspirations, are those of the people from whom he 
has sprung and amongst whom he lives, that he is 
not only active, intelligent, but that he is the re- 
pository of learning in the neighbourhood, that he is 
foremost in the promotion of good works, whether 
of charity or of social or political upbuilding, and 
that his holy office enhances the force of all his 
words ; is it a wonder that such a person is not 
merely admired and followed, but — the soggarth aroon 
— veritably loved by his flock ? 

Or again, here is an old priest, Father MacOlave. 
Age and experience have made him patient ; from 
his whole bearing and appearance arises the sugges- 
tion of that parental authority indicated in his familiar 
title. He is over seventy years of age, but he is still 
active, for day by day he imbibes a fresh stimulus — 
the sight of some good to be done or grief to be 
assuaged. His mind is keen, he seems to remember 
everything, except to dwell on his own ills or to 
minister to his own comfort. Destitute of personal 
ambition, he has yet been honoured. He is now a 
Canon ; but that to him seems less a matter of pride 
than as a passport which enlarges the scope for 
work. The good-will, the paternal sympathy for all, 
the kindness of his simple nature, has become apparent 
in his outward form, and as the passer-by sees the 
figure slightly bent, the white flowing locks, but 
notes the energetic manner, the pale features but 
cheering look, the mildly beaming but beatified eyes, 
he recognises the truth of his epithet : " The Saint 
of " 

These are not the only types. It is not difficult to 
find a parallel for the following : A coarse and 



156 IEELAND : VITAL HOUE 

worldly man, with his round little figure, his puckered 
eyes and red face ; narrow, illiterate and rancorous ; 
appearing at public meetings now and then, and at 
times of crisis, for instance, always on the wrong 
side ; not winning by sweetness and light, but 
urging in bad temper, so that " you could scrape the 
venom off his face/'' Such is Father Crabtree. 

Or again, Father Pyke, a man of considerable 
ability and force, tall and broad, without being ath- 
letic, with an eye that shows intelligence and power, 
but also the spirit of a man who never forgets an 
injury nor forgives a rebuff ; active in mind, yet, by 
having lived too long in a narrow groove, displaying 
an energy broken up into a hundred different channels 
of public work or gossip, and mastering all with 
prolixity of mere detail, wielding considerable influ- 
ence, ambitious for power, dominating most of his 
brother priests, gradually becoming recognised as a 
sort of local boss where wire-pulling tells, and where 
driving power is decisive ; judging the people accord- 
ing to his lights, holding them in no great respect, 
working through their self-interest, little scrupulous 
as to means, and never neglecting the advancement 
of his dependents ; soured and intolerant, and even 
while dealing with public matters, active, capable 
and useful servitor though he may prove himself, 
yet unable to look through any other medium than 
that of his own aims, feelings, prejudices, resentments, 
or unpardoning memory of scores to be paid off. 

Such a man as here described is more likely to be 
potent in a small community than either of the three 
other characters I have indicated. The question of 
toleration is not the only problem in view, for a 
leader of this type is sure to be masterly and in- 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 157 

tolerant in regard to Catholics who oppose his will, 
and he will not hesitate as to the delicacy of the 
means of scoring his triumphs. If he be thwarted 
or beaten on any public ground, if he be criticised 
as is the lot of all public men, he is inclined to be not 
merely resentful but to consider a personal check as an 
affront to his office, and an attack upon the Church. 

Such notions are not unknown in any degree of 
the Hierarchy. Certain of the bishops seem to think, 
and with a fair degree of truth, that they are the real 
Government of Ireland 1 ; that County Councils and 
the like are useful servitors for dealing with the 
detail work of sanitation, road repairing, and so 
forth ; and that the Members of Parliament merely 
divert the attention of the masses and amuse the 
gallery ; but that on large issues or on critical 
occasions, in questions of education or at the turn- 
ing-point of politics, then the real Government, the 
Church, steps in and decides. 

In this spirit of arrogance on the part of the 
powerful and authoritative Hierarchy of the Church 
in Ireland lies the main argument against Home 

1 Apropos of the claim of the Hierarchy of Ireland to be the real 
Government, I find this little note : 

When the Vatican Council assembled forty-three years ago, 
seven hundred and sixty-seven mitred heads were ranged round 
the chair of Peter. They represented thirty different nations, 
some having provinces ten times larger than Ireland. Yet the 
Bishops of Irish birth and blood in that august assembly out- 
numbered those of any other nation by twenty-four. When 
Cardinal Manning saw the long army of Ireland's mitred sons 
sweeping in procession through the streets of Rome, he cried : 
" If there is a saint in the high sanctuary of heaven that has 
reason to be proud to-night, that saint's name is Patrick." 
At that time Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Europe, and 
one of those in which general instruction was the most backward. 



158 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

Rule, and, say what we will as Nationalists, it is an 
argument of validity. It is not an argument sufficient 
to overthrow Home Rule, but it should be sufficient 
for those who have been entrusted by the people with 
a mandate, to induce them to stand up like men and 
make it plain to the whole world that the priests will 
be kept firmly within their province, and that, ren- 
dering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to 
God the things that are God's, the men of Ireland 
will take into their own hands the management of 
Irish affairs. 

Putting the priests in their proper place by no 
means disposes of the influence of clerics in Ireland. 
The Ulster bigot has grown on congenial soil, and 
he has reached a rare beauty of development in his 
peculiar genus. He has something of the wit and 
fire of the Irishman, the dourness and purpose of 
the Scot. He has all that " airnestness " which 
since the days of John Knox has been the chief 
quality of great preachers. He is rugged, arrogant, 
rigid, and narrow. He scoffs at the infallibility of 
the Pope ; he never for a moment doubts his own. 
He wrestles with himself to be fair, and so he is 
according to his lights ; the mischief is that his 
narrow soul is badly illuminated, and he holds as 
his dearest possession the bars of the spiritual prison 
through which the beams of light faintly pass. He 
calls it an obligation of his creed to be kind to all 
men ; but then a Papist, he thinks, is hardly human. 1 

1 " By their fruits ye shall know them " ! We have already seen that 
County Clare, so much abused on the Tory platform, has been generous 
in electing Protestants to honourable and to profitable positions. 
From a mass of information regarding Belfast I select this one item, 
on the authority of " Home Rule Notes " : 

There are 437 salaried officials in the service of the Belfast 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 159 

I have visited Belfast, admired its clean principal 
streets, looked upon its slums with astonishment, 

Corporation, and only 9 of these are Roman Catholics. The 
sum paid in salaries is £68,723, of which the total received by the 
9 Roman Catholics officials is £765. Moreover, until a Conserva- 
tive House of Commons stepped in and compelled a redistribution 
of the City Wards, no Catholic was allowed to be a Member of 
any Public Board in Belfast, and there was not one Catholic 
employee under the Corporation. A Roman Catholic has never 
yet been elected as Mayor or Lord Mayor of Belfast. 

The Belfast Poor Law Board presents a similar record. This 
Board spends over £10,000 a year in salaries, and in its official 
list of " Officers Required to Give Security " — that is to say, of 
the holders of higher-class appointments — there appears the 
name of only one Catholic who receives £45 a year. 
All material happenings have an origin in the spirit, and the follow- 
ing extract from a Report upon Home Rule presented to Ulster 
Presbyterians shows the spirit of enlightenment there prevalent : 

It will be for ever impossible to fight Home Rule successfully 
as long as it is contended or admitted that Romanists and other 
open enemies of the true religion ought to have political power. 
We regard the so-called Catholic Emancipation Act as the " first 
plague spot " of the Home Rule evil. From the time of the pass- 
ing of that Act, which gave the Romanists the Franchise, dates 
the beginning of their power to threaten the liberties of the 
Protestants in Ireland. 
Carlyle was at one time interested in the American statesman 
Daniel Webster, with his " rugged amorphous " face ; but Emerson 
in reply described Webster as " soaked in the rum of party." That 
phrase seemed to me to explain many difficulties. In looking over the 
following extracts from the addresses of clerical gentlemen in Belfast, 
the reader may enquire in stupefaction, with what sweet wine of life 
do these Christians regale themselves ? It is not without misgiving 
that I reply : the Religion of Love : 

A sleeping giant was no match for a vigilant enemy, and so 
when Protestantism slept Rome was wide awake. Under the 
plea of liberty they claimed equal rights with Protestants. Hence 
idolatrous and Paganised processions were attempted, and 
politics were made the vehicle of their influence and authority. 
Education must be settled to suit their convenience, and the Ten 
Commandments written by the finger of God must be changed 
at the dictate of the Vatican, not only for Roman Catholic chil- 



160 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

given due honour to its energetic citizens, listened to 
the grating accents of the successful man, tipped the 

dren, but to be held up and dangled before Protestant children. 
How was it that they must blot out the words, " Thou shalt not 
have any graven image " ? The Coronation Oath had been 
altered lest their sensibilities be offended. Those arch-fiends of 
oppression dare talk of toleration and freedom ! Coming from 
the City of Cork, where he had attended the Methodist Confer- 
ence, he (Mr. Collier) thought of that hymn : " And are we yet 
alive to see each other's faces." If they had dared, the National- 
ists and Roman Catholics would have wrecked the place. An 
officer of the State said to one of their city magistrates as he was 
passing out : " For God's sake, don't go or they will have your 
life." Those were the gentle lambs, and so Rome was using 
every influence and every power to make her way to break the 
iron wall of an Imperial race, and to subjugate Protestantism to 
the Vatican. 
The above has been taken from an address delivered in Ulster Hall 
on 6th July 1914, by the Rev. H. G. Collier. My authority is the 
" Ulster Guardian," from which several of the notes on this question 
have been obtained. On the same authority we learn that the Rev. 
C. E. Keane, M.A., declared : 

It is a well-known fact that there is a Jesuit on the staff of 
every paper in the three kingdoms except one. 
The Rev. Dr. Macaulay is a Moderator, I believe ; this is his 
moderating language in February 1914 : 

But under a Home Rule Government would they have the same 

security as they have now ? Might it not, for example, be made 

a punishable offence to say that the Roman Catholic Church was 

an unscriptural and erroneous Church ? He would not be at all 

surprised if that were done under a Home Rule Government, and 

he would not be surprised that it might be enacted that no one 

should get a public appointment unless he conformed to the 

worship of the Roman Catholic Church. 

According to the " Lurgan Mail " of 28th February 1914, the Rev. 

R. Ussher Greer, M.A., Episcopalian Rector, delivered a lecture in 

Donacloney Orange Hall on the subject : " An Orangeman : Why ? " 

It appears that for twenty years the reverend gentleman has been 

" a member of the Supreme Degree of the Red Cross." His talk was 

Supreme, though apparently more tinctured by the Redness than by 

the Cross : 

What (he said) has done us more damage than anything is the 



PEIESTS IN POLITICS 161 

German waiters, and received a smile from the Ger- 
man maid, the outposts of a still more provocative 

rotten-hearted Protestants who sit on the fence. And pro- 
ceeded to urge that if Orangemen refused to recognise as a Pro- 
testant anyone who did not come and take his responsibility at 
the present time, we could have won in this business long ago. 
On first contact with the Rev. S. Cochrane of the Fisherwick 
Presbyterian Church, I thought he was cross-grained, but on further 
reading I revised my opinion ; I remembered a saying of Fox on 
Dean Swift : no one could be an ill-tempered man who wrote so much 
nonsense. 

Here is something of what the Rev. S. Cochrane said on 6th July 
last : 

Cruel and unjust outrages were being perpetrated against their 
Protestantism and against their citizenship. The movement 
supported by the present Government was one of the most 
scandalous conspiracies ever conceived against the rights of a 
free people, and they would search history in vain to find another 
instance of a great and powerful empire and a settled Govern- 
ment responsible for such dastardly wrongs as were associated 
with the contemplated enactments of the British House of Com- 
mons in reference to the future rule of Ireland. 
In the House of Commons even the most stalwart of the Ulsterman 
deny that they are merely fighting for Ascendancy ; but the Rev. 
F. W. Austin, Rector of St. Columba's, Knock, has rushed in where 
Captain Craig and Mr. William Moore have feared to tread. In a 
letter to the " Belfast News-Letter " of 7th January 1914, he says : 

We Irish Covenanters are still treated to sermons and speeches 
in which we are frequently told that " we seek no ascendancy." 
How then, is the Church of Rome to be kept at bay ? Why are 
we such strong Unionists ? If we are not aiming at the ascendancy 
of Protestantism in some corner of Ireland what are we aiming at ? 
Here we have the real note. That letter has a ring of battle, with 
the " j'y suis, j'y reste " — I am here, I stay — defiance to fate ! 

The Archdeacon of Down is a kind of local War Lord. He talks to 
the Roman Catholic population like the German Emperor to Belgium. 
Here is his ultimatum of 8th March of this year of grace : 

The quarrel is between us and the Government. If the Roman 
Catholic population of Ireland stands aside and allows us to settle 
our difficulties with the Government, not a single Roman Catholic 
in Ireland will be injured by us. But if the Roman Catholics of 
Ireland join in any attempt to force us to accept Home Rule, 
11 



162 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

people. I have gone further ; I have looked into 
the origin of Belfast's industrial greatness and the 

then, by their own action, and to our regret, they will have taken 

the initiative against what we believe to be our just rights, and 

they will only have themselves to blame if they suffer in any way 

for their action. 

The Rev. Mr. Greer, whom we met with recently, seems to be a 

stickler for political etiquette, a Legitimiste, as they would say in 

France ; for he bends even the facts of history to fit in with that 

mood of mind. He told the people of Donacloney : 

that William of Orange took possession of the Throne as lineal 
descendant of the Kings of England. 
Macaulay, however, asserts that the Dutchman owed his title solely to 
Parliamentary sanction. The Orangemen are not always so scrupulous 
as to successions. The Rev. Dr. Patterson, on the 4th October 1913, 
contemplated the chance of taking an independent stand : 

A man might divorce his wife, but he could not compel her to 
marry another man of his choosing. They had made their 
choice, and if they could not stand under the British Throne they 
would stand on their own feet, but to a Dublin Parliament 
governed by Rome they would never surrender. 
But the Rev. Dr. Patterson appears a pale effigy beside the Crom- 
wellian Rev. Mr. Walmsley. 

" The Inniskillen Impartial Reporter " of August 15 states that at 
a Relief of Derry anniversary gathering at Castle Irvine, Irvinestown : 
Brother Rev. Mr. Walmsley said he did not think the day 
would ever come when Mr. Asquith would return to Ireland, 
accompanied by the King, to open an Irish Parliament. If 
that day did come to pass he (the speaker) would feel himself 
justified in not regarding him as King any longer. 
But again even Brother Rev. Mr. Walmsley is but a feeble replica 
of the Rev. John Flanagan, who flourished on Orange platforms in 
the sixties. 

At a meeting at Newbliss, Co. Monaghan, on the 20th March 1868, 
he made a celebrated speech, in which a phrase occurs that has since 
become classical. The "Northern Whig " of the following day reports 
him thus : 

If they ever dare to lay unholy hands upon the Church 200,000 
Orangemen will tell them it shall never be. Protestant loyalty 
must make itself understood. People will say, " Oh, your loyalty 
is conditional. I say it is conditional, and it must be explained 
as such. Will you, Orangemen of Ireland, endorse the doctrine 



PEIESTS IN POLITICS 163 

appearance of her armies of sweated workers. A 
little too much is made of the wonderful racial 

of unconditional loyalty ? (Repeated cries of "No, never.") It 
appears wonderful that there is one thing upon which we can 
confidently throw ourselves, and which has been overlooked by 
nearly all speakers — I mean the Queen's coronation oath. She 
should be reminded that one of her ancestors, who swore to 
maintain the Protestant religion, forgot his oath, and his crown 
was kicked into the Boyne. (He then read the oath, and the 
questions put to the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of the 
coronation.) Will any minister dare to ask the Queen to perjure 
herself ? Will any minister come and ask us to surrender our 
rights ? We must tell our gracious Queen that if she break her 
oath, she has no longer any claim to the crown. Let us not put 
any trust in man, but trust to God and ourselves : 

Put your trust in God, my boys, 

And keep your powder dry. 
The following is taken from the " Home Rule Library " : 

CONSPIRACY TO EXCLUDE QUEEN VICTORIA 

In 1825 the Orange Society was dissolved by Act of Parliament, 
but was reconstituted three years later ; and in 1835, forty years 
after the establishment of this organisation, it had secured the 
Duke of Cumberland as its " Grand Master," and was promoting 
a conspiracy to exclude Queen Victoria from the British Throne, 
and to secure the crown for their Grand Master. This menacing 
and seditious conspiracy led to the Parliamentary inquiry of 
1835. That Select Committee was composed of 27 members, of 
whom 13 were Conservatives, 12 Liberals, and 2 neutral ; and 
only 2 of the 27 were Roman Catholics ; and the report after 
deploring " the baneful and unchristian influence of the lodges " 
proceeds : 

" The obvious tendency and effect of the Orange Institution 
is to keep up an exclusive association in civil and military society, 
exciting one portion of the people against the other ; to increase 
the rancour and animosity too often unfortunately existing 
between persons of different religious persuasions ; to make the 
Protestant the enemy of the Catholic, and the Catholic the 
enemy of the Protestant." 

In consequence of the grave nature of the disclosures made 
by the Select Committee of 1835, the House of Commons, on 
the motion of Lord John Russell, unanimously prayed the King 



164 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

qualities of the blend of the Irish and Scotch. Let 
us give the fullest value to them, but let us not 
always take the Belfast man at his own valuation, 
with that arrogant emphasis on the "I" and " me," 
and the outrageous : " Now, mark you me ! " which 
characterises his conversation. If these be the 
chosen people, then God thinks little of the minor 
graces of life. 

It has been given to me to meet men in many 
lands, and to observe the presentation, even the 
pose, if you will, of men who have witched the world 
with bold and brilliant feats. Of all these forms I 
like best that of the French nation — " decadent/' 
as it is called in benighted latitudes — with its cour- 
tesy, politeness, ease, which need not exclude reserve 
fire, nor masculine force. It is not in Belfast that 
we find the champion boxer, nor the " loop-the- 
looper," nor the most brilliant mathematician, nor 
the supreme chemist ; and the point is worth 
emphasising, for in many countries, as in Belfast, 
there is a tendency to find that uncouthness and 
incivility denote strength, and so these undesirable 
possessions are kept artificially alive. The Belfast 
man's rudeness is a confession of secret weakness. 

to put down Orange Societies ; and in reply, the King called 
upon his loyal subjects to aid him in doing so. 
I could quote many other documents, but it is unnecessary to 
pursue the theme. Having spoken frankly with regard to Priests in 
Politics I thought it only right to point out to citizens of good-will 
that it behoves us to look on all sides of the question. Yet after all 
I do not want to quarrel even with these Ulstermen. They have 
excellent, though misdirected qualities ; and we would have some- 
thing valuable for Ireland, if, preserving that energy and force of 
character, we could rob it of much that is self-seeking and merely 
arrogant, illuminate it with the clear beams of reason, endow it with 
common sense, and direct its fervour to the common weal. 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 165 

There is no suave confidence, but rather a covenanting 
threat in his voice, when he tells you that Belfast is 
the Athens of the North. Certainly the parade of 
roughness is here excusable, for no stranger, un- 
prompted, would have touched upon that comparison. 
No one but George Bernard Shaw could put Pericles 
on the stage asserting that Athens was a Southern 
Belfast ! 

Yet there is a little world of history in that accent 
of Belfast, and this is the siren voice that has brought 
the Tory party in England to destruction. And the 
sweetest songster of all is that thing of light, and 
wit, and gentle power, that angel of mercies, that 
large-souled champion of progress, William Moore. 

I believe it jars upon the ears of the more en- 
lightened members of the Tory party to hear, at 
every turn of Irish politics, the note of hatred of 
Nationalist Ireland, this peevish impatience of any 
symptom of good-will or better relations, this raucous 
expression of prejudices, this revival of the feuds 
and feelings of the past. The exploits of Bloody 
Mary seem to these gentlemen to have happened a 
month ago, and good Queen Bess might have come 
to town on Wednesday last, such is the temper of 
religious heat in which they discuss our affairs of to- 
day. They fling King William at our head, but for 
my part I care so little for these polemics, that I feel 
perfectly free to appreciate, eclectically, the good 
qualities of William, even to the extent of testing 
again my distrust of politicians and my prejudice 
against Kings. But after all, William the Silent was 
not an Irishman, not even a Belfast Irishman, and 
there has always seemed to me something incongruous 
between the arrogance of loyal Ulster, their assump- 



166 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

tion of superiority, and the shortage of native leaders. 
Perhaps part of their admiration of the silent Dutch- 
man arises from the fact that he was silent enough 
never to say what he thought of them. 

Sir Edward Carson is not silent, but though he 
talks his voice is that of a Southern, and this unex- 
pected boon has charmed the listening ear of Ulster. 
The native expression is found in its choicest quality 
in the Orange lodges. Looking at the matter as 
impartially as I can, it seems to me that some sort of 
lodge was imperatively called for to stop the criminal 
career of James II ; but that event happened long 
ago. Generations have passed away, the Protes- 
tants in Ulster have again established their ascen- 
dancy, and yet we find these Orange lodges in the 
full blast of their activity. Why ? I will in turn 
appeal for impartiality. Is it not clear that under 
the cloak of religion — the religion of love — these 
Orange lodges, these political organisations, these 
century-old aggressive intolerances, have had little 
significance as a bulwark against the encroachments 
of Rome, but a real and business-like, meaning in 
regard to the distribution of the offices of profit % 

Ascendancy is not a mere sentiment. It means 
that the area of competition has been limited. It 
means unfair privileges, sinecures, rewards, and in- 
surance against incapacity. It means that from a 
grasping father to a semi-imbecile son the grip may 
be held on emoluments. Have the Protestants in 
the North, where they are in the majority, ever given 
the Catholics fair play ? Of the hundreds of offices 
in the control of the municipalities, from stately 
sinecures to lucrative posts, down to the humblest 
billets, how many are held by Catholics ? Nothing 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 167 

of importance beyond that of a crossing- sweeper's 
job. Does that represent the relative ability of the 
people ? If it did, does anyone imagine that there 
would be desperate efforts to retain Ascendancy ? 
If a boxer looks in contempt on a rival, he does not 
demand that the rival shall fight with his right hand 
tied behind his back. But Ascendancy asks more 
than that, it requires the obliteration of the opponent. 

The Belfast man knows full well that if Ireland had 
a fair Constitution, and if all posts were thrown open 
to competition, and all rewards given on merit, then 
the bright and quick-witted youngsters of the South 
would play a fast and lively game with their sons, 
and often score the winning points ; for, " mark 
you me ! ," Nature does not love the dour and 
cross-grained style, nor are stiffness and rigidity the 
signs of strength, physical or mental. Eliminate the 
undue influence of the priests ! With all my heart. 
But let us eliminate, step by step, the undue influence 
of the Orange pulpit, that " drum ecclesiastic " 
which beats out so strangely its contents of charity 
and love. Eliminate the undue influence by which 
these Orange prelates have stampeded and captured 
the English hierarchy. Eliminate the undue influ- 
ence of that hierarchy, which in proportion as it is 
losing its hold upon its flock in spiritual things, 
clings the more desperately to its prerogatives, and 
seeks to justify its existence as a vast political 
organisation. 

That organisation has almost consistently in 
modern history placed itself in the path of progress, 
not to march steadily and determinedly therein to 
those ideals of fellowship and communion preached 
by the Founder of the religion, but ever to oppose the 



168 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

aspirations of Democracy and thwart the onward 
movement of civilisation itself. That organisation 
is presumptuous, dominating and proud, although 
the Sermon on the Mount teaches humility ; that 
organisation is avaricious and rich, although the 
New Testament condemns laying up treasure on 
earth ; that organisation flouts the will of the people, 
and stands accused by the doctrines that should be 
the breath of its life. 

I am amazed when I read the sermons of high 
ecclesiastical magnates, be they Bishops, Archbishops, 
or Moderators, or what not of titles of pride — amazed 
to find the conception of the Deity that prevails in 
their minds — a Deity, made in their own image, 
endowed by them with their passions, prejudices, and 
narrow-mindedness ; a Deity of disorder, scorn, and 
hate ; a Deity of parochial gossip and futile resent- 
ments, as when the Bishop of London called on the 
Creator to smash the Parliament Act. 

I have turned from these wretched preachings in 
which the holiest of names are flung into the melee of 
a party strife, I have lifted my eyes to the heavens, 
I have gazed into the infinite space ; I have ques- 
tioned the mystery of the stars, I have stood struck 
with awe yet humanly raised by that feeling ; and I 
have sought insight into the march of things, the 
secret of the laws that wield the world, all these 
forms from the delicatest shape of flowers even up to 
the stupendous architecture of the universe unbound ; 
and knowing how puny is the effort of man, have 
yet felt reverence for those whose thought has 
striven to pierce the veil ; and I have seen how won- 
derful is the work of science that here and there 
flashes its beam of light, that gives us glintings of 



PRIESTS IN POLITICS 169 

an organic whole, and fills our mind with stray- 
caught notes of harmony. 

Shall I return to speak now of clerical intrigues, 
of the privileged exercise of exalted powers, of all 
the hubble-bubble of their mean religious bickerings, 
manoeuvres, violence, and wrong ? No. Eliminate 
undue influence of priests, eliminate undue influence 
of Anglican prelates, of Nonconformist divines. Yes. 
This is difficult. Yes, but already to have stated the 
problem is to have made a step towards its solution. 
It is not impossible that a newer generation may 
grow up, not believing, as if their life depended on 
it, that the world is a difficult mountain path, which 
at their birth divides into two ways, one the Catholic 
way, the other the Protestant way ; that the choice 
rests neither on goodness nor badness, nor light nor 
darkness, simply on accident, the accident of birth ; 
but that on that accident depend the glory of 
Heaven, the certainty of Hell ; and that not this 
alone, but that we must give of these destinies a 
foretaste to our friends and enemies ; and in view 
of the deficiency of celestial attributes deal with 
brimstone only. 

No. The world is something other, though the 
mists of our time have obscured it. And even these 
two paths lead to a fair and open plain where those 
separated by fateful accidents may reunite in sym- 
pathy, in affection, and in fraternal help. 



CHAPTER VI 

IRISH ORGANISATIONS 

Organisations are indigenous on Irish soil. Irish- 
men are generally considered difficult to discipline, 
nevertheless they have a notable talent for organisa- 
tion. And so it happens that when an Irishman of 
education and ability finds any outlet for the exer- 
cise of this faculty he produces exceptionally good 
results. One can cite, in passing, Lord Anthony 
MacDonnell, whose reputation as an organiser in 
India has qualified him to offer weighty advice in 
regard to the settlement of the Irish question. It 
is not only that the Irishman has a good conception 
of the formal character of organisation, but he puts 
into the work a certain zeal and a kind of mothering 
care. 

Speaking then of modern times which have a real 
bearing on our present situation we find in 1782 a 
remarkable organisation of Volunteers, to which 
reference has been made in the first chapter. They 
were brought into existence ostensibly to protect the 
Irish from an attack by a foreign foe during Eng- 
land's troubles with America and France, but they 
soon began to appear as the most eloquent factor in 
the appeal of Ireland for an independent Parliament. 
What is known as Grattan's Parliament was the 
result, The Volunteers were disbanded by their 

170 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 171 

own motion. That really meant that Ireland had 
thrown away the weapon by which she had gained 
her success ; the fall of the Parliament was only a 
question of years. 

The next organisation which we have to note is 
that of the United Irishmen, of which Wolfe Tone 
was the leading spirit. This was a secret organisa- 
tion, for secrecy has always exercised a fascinating 
spell on Irishmen. At all times these secret organisa- 
tions have been infested with spies, and the suspicion 
and distrust so engendered have been potent causes 
of disruption in nearly all the organisations that 
have successively held sway in Ireland. The United 
Irishmen nourished from 1796 to 1798, their career 
being virtually ended in the desperate insurrection in 
1798, and by the death of Wolfe Tone in a prison cell. 

The spirit of the United Irishmen remained in the 
country, but in default of any leader of special 
character and talent the organisation degenerated 
into various small sectional bodies, of which the 
Whiteboys were typical. With varying fortunes 
but never with any great political significance the 
Whiteboys continued from 1800 until about I860. 1 
Similar organisations were those of Ribbon Men of 
various types, and these were secret organisations, 
even with an excess of secrecy as far as the rank 
and file were concerned. Many of those who were 
initiated knew little of their own organisation be- 
yond the names of those who had introduced them, 
and a vague indication of some higher authorities 
from whom they received orders. Such an order 
might take the form of killing a man at a fair. The 
Ribbon Man had to do the work, though not know- 

1 Tbe Whiteboys were first founded in Tipperary about 1761, 



172 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

ing the origin of the order nor the motive by which 
it was inspired. These organisations were sometimes 
perverted from their original intention and were 
cunningly made use of by the landlords themselves 
for such ends as personal revenge. 

A more serious public organisation was that of the 
Catholic Association which held sway from 1809 to 
1829, and which pointed to Catholic Emancipation 
as its own justification. The organisation with re- 
gard to tithes filled the years between 1829-31. The 
great Repeal movement continued in force from 
1840 to 1846. O'ConnelFs methods were found too 
slow by the fiery Young Icelanders, and the move- 
ment really ended in the blaze of their abortive 
insurrection. In 1852 a Tenants' Rights organisation 
was formed principally on the initiative of Richard 
Finton Lalor, whose brother led the miners at the 
Eureka Stockade in Ballarat in 1854. The move- 
ment of Finton Lalor did not attract great attention 
at the time, but in his propaganda will be found the 
germ of nearly all the ideas which have since been 
adopted, and many of which have been realised by 
various movements of land reform, and land 
taxation. 

This movement was followed by that of the Fenians 
— the Irish Republican Brotherhood — the organisa- 
tion which more than all was deeply rooted in the 
spirit of the Irish working people. This was a secret 
organisation. The most active worker and the 
acknowledged leader of the cause in Ireland was 
James Stephens. He was, I believe, a commercial 
traveller, and he used the facilities he had of travel- 
ling from place to place to found on sure lines his 
formidable " Brotherhood/' The system was simple, 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 173 

but capable of development. It might be briefly 
described in this way : A local leader who had been 
initiated would enroll a number of men bound by 
oath of a somewhat elastic character but with the 
well-understood indication of rebellion when the 
time came. This local leader would be a centre. A 
number of such local leaders would again form the 
elements of an advanced stage of the organisation. 
For them there would be appointed a higher centre 
represented by a man chosen by themselves or 
appointed by higher authorities. Just as the first 
leader was responsible for all his local men, so this 
centre was responsible for all the local leaders. 
This system of building was continued until one 
reached the summit of the system, and James 
Stephens was in Ireland the leader of all. 

The Fenians in many ways mark the beginning of 
recent Irish history. For one thing, this organisation 
practically abolished the custom of faction fighting, 
which had prevailed for centuries in Ireland. No 
story of Ireland is complete without some reference 
to faction fighting, for it is there that the psychology 
of the people may be well studied. Carleton's de- 
scriptions are especially vivid. He does not forget 
the humorous elements in the situation either, for 
it is only an Irishman who can find the real smack 
of humour in these wild incidents. The feuds took 
place sometimes between village and village. They 
were arranged and planned as a football match is 
now ; indeed they were the sport of a virile people 
full of pristine energy. The weapons were black- 
thorns, and there was a certain etiquette in their 
employment and in the rules of the game generally. 
The two sides fought with desperate fierceness but 



174 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

generally with the most perfect loyalty. Combatants 
were often killed but these deaths were hidden and 
the law had no hold. I have met men who have 
known of these faction fights personally, and one 
incident may be cited as typical. A leader in a 
faction fight was so badly beaten that he was carried 
to a neighbouring hospital apparently on the point 
of death. The rival leader managed to see him, but 
only for a moment, long enough, however, to utter 
one word : " Secret." The other who seemed to be 
at his last gasp had only energy enough to make a 
sign of acquiescence. As a matter of fact he re- 
covered and lived to be an old man, but he never 
revealed the names of those who had almost done 
him to death. 

It must have been a hard wrench for the peasantry 
to give up this alluring sport, but that fact indicates 
with what a tremendous grip the Fenian organisa- 
tion had fastened on their minds. The plans of the 
Fenians became shattered before they had time to 
become fully developed for action. And so it hap- 
pened that my old friend, John O'Leary, was sen- 
tenced to twenty years of imprisonment, four of 
which he actually served under vile conditions and 
sixteen of which he spent in exile, although his 
actual transgression of the law was nothing more 
than technical. Stephens was imprisoned, but he 
was released from prison by means of a daring and 
romantic plot, one of the confederates of which I 
afterwards met in New York where he lived as a 
reputable and popular citizen. 

Stephens returned to Ireland not long before his 
death and I once had the opportunity of meeting 
him in Dublin. He had an organising head. I have 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 175 

seen such a head in capable business men holding 
under their control a complex system, such men as 
traffic managers, heads of departments, or the like ; 
I have seen such a head in a great German chemist, 
and in a French mathematician. Under happier 
auspices Stephens might have been a man of science 
— a well-shaped, amply rounded dome, a forehead 
large but not too large to disturb the harmonious 
proportion of cerebral activity, nor to destroy the 
symmetry of the compact frame and regular features ; 
a countenance not particularly impressive, rather re- 
sembling that of a bearded German professor, the eye 
of an overseer, still marking the leader and indicating 
what he must have been in his early days, a man of 
restless energy and ever busy plotting brain, prolix 
of detail, yet firm in carrying out a bold and well- 
planned scheme. John O'Leary told me that 
Stephens in the height of his activity was an im- 
perious, self-willed man, brooking no opposition from 
subordinates, critical, intolerant, bad-tempered, 
masterful, impatient, but wonderfully capable for 
his own particular work. When I met him, how- 
ever, he spoke in the calm reflective manner of a 
philosopher, estimating with judgment the value of 
things and giving his opinions with ponderation and 
good sense. John O'Leary told me that that was 
a sign of breaking up : " When Stephens began to 
speak well of others I saw that his will-power was 
going ; when he was altogether good-natured, his 
work was done " ! 

I will leave the matter with that. I do not think 
that I have attached undue importance to the 
Fenian movement. The Irish Republican Brother- 
hood did not cut such a wide swath in history as 



176 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

their merits warranted. What it required was that 
after the work of organisation had been so far per- 
fected some greater leader with a new kind of talent 
should step in and use the instrument so fabricated. 
To compare great with small, as Milton says at 
times, it required a genius to play the Alexander 
following upon the Philip of James Stephens. But 
perhaps the difficulty would have been too great even 
for a Philip and an Alexander, for the framework in 
which Irish physical force has been compelled to 
work out its destiny has hardly at any time held 
scope enough for success. 

The Fenians were followed in the early seventies 
by the Home Rule Federation of which Butt 
was the leading spirit. Isaac Butt was a Pro- 
testant of Conservative leanings, of exceptional 
talent as a lawyer and of wonderful power as 
an orator even in that land of oratory — Ireland. 
But he lacked the essential — force of character. 
Butt was always an impecunious man, although 
at one time he must have gained big fees at 
the Bar. I have heard all sorts of stories about 
him in Ireland and elsewhere which to English 
notions indicate a somewhat " racketty " or " harum 
scarum " existence, but which to the Irish mind is 
rather softened down by that atmosphere of sym- 
pathy which we find again in Murger's stories of the 
Vie de Boheme in Paris. He would drive up to 
the Four Courts in an outside car, and arriving at 
the end of his journey would fumble in his pocket ; 
if a lucky coin turned up the cabby might get four 
times his fare, if there was no coin there, and that 
was quite normal, the cabby got the smile of the 
Irish leader. I have heard too that when Butt was 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 177 

arrested for debt, and while locked up for a short 
time, he required some stimulant. His persuasive 
tongue had won over the constable, but even the 
constable could not open the door. Finally this 
device was hit upon — the officer poked the stem of a 
long church-warden pipe through the keyhole, he 
poured whisky into the bowl, and Butt imbibed it 
at the other end. 

The name of Butt is still popular in Irish political 
circles, and in some histories he is held up as a 
model of statesmanship particularly for those qualities 
which indicated his lack of real power. I was once 
in conversation with an Irish politician who was 
praising the qualities of Butt. I said to him, but 
after all when the actual events are beginning to 
get remote and things are seen in their true per- 
spective, history demands : What has a man actually 
done in the fabric of progress ? Now what did Butt 
ever do to advance the Irish cause ? This question 
left my friend silent for two or three moments, and 
then he replied in a characteristic Irish phrase : 
" Dam'all ! " That is Irish for nothing. 

Butt's rule was succeeded by that of Mr. Shaw, 
who believed that the best policy for Ireland was 
that the Irish Party should show itself as a model 
of behaviour and trust to the good-will of England. 
Mr. Shaw disappeared and left no trace. 

We now come to the part which really definitely 
marks the beginning of modern Ireland ; we discover 
the figures of Davitt and Parnell. Davitt founded 
the Land League in 1879 at Irishtown in Mayo. It 
was a league devoted to the destruction of the land- 
lord system, and the means employed were those of 
" agitation " as it was then understood in Ireland, 
12 



178 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

an agitation diversified by a great many adventures 
of an exciting and occasionally of a tragic character. 
Meanwhile Parnell had gained a complete ascendancy 
over the Irish Party at Westminster and at length 
he captured the Land League, although at the be- 
ginning the League had been set up in defiance of 
Parliamentary methods and had become established 
as a sort of rival power to his own. Michael 
Davitt who was the most unselfish of patriots had 
imbibed many philosophical notions which practical 
politicians called " viewy," and for which the great 
public mind had certainly not been sufficiently pre- 
pared. The most notable of these was Land 
Nationalisation. Davitt and Parnell came into col- 
lision more than once, and in these attacks the 
stronger authority of the Parliamentary Leader bore 
down the opposition of the Tribune of the people. 
The Land League was suppressed in 1881. 

In the meantime the organisation of the Invincibles 
had been established. This was an organisation 
formed by a small number of determined men bound 
under a stringent oath, and with secrecy so close 
that no man of the rank and file knew what was 
the source of the commands which he obeyed ; the 
leader was known simply as No. 1. The principal 
modes of operation of this organisation were terrorism 
and assassination of those whom they thought to be 
the enemies or oppressors of Ireland. The culmina- 
tion of their exploits was the assassination of Mr. 
Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish in Phoenix Park 
at a time of day when a polo match was in progress 
not far off and when many loungers and passers by 
were in the vicinity. The story of this event and of 
all that arose out of it has been told in many books. 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 179 

This tragic incident threw Parnell into consterna- 
tion, principally because in a moment it drew aside 
the veil from an under world of plotting and hatred 
of which he himself had had no cognisance and of 
which he could not sound the depths. As a conse- 
quence he placed his resignation in Mr. Gladstone's 
hands. Reviewing the whole circumstance it would 
seem that the organisation was really restricted and 
quite localised. It is still a matter of dispute as to 
who was No. 1. In America I met two men each 
of whom in turn was designated as No. 1, though I 
am inclined to think that neither was. The verit- 
able No. 1 was, I believe, an ex-officer of the Southern 
Army during the Civil War, a daring fellow who had 
faced death in too many shapes to be daunted by 
the risks of such an organisation, and whose whole 
style was calculated to impress men of the Joe 
Brady stamp and make them his unquestioning 
servitors. I dwell on this for a moment because 
when Irish agitation reaches a certain temperature 
the rise of men of this stamp in some form or other 
should always be held in calculation. 

As the Land League grew in power means of action 
were devised which had not at first been contem- 
plated. In a memorable speech at Ennis Parnell 
affirmed, though he had not originated, that system 
which was afterwards known as " boycott." In 
Kilmainham Gaol he, in company with others who 
were also imprisoned there, signed the " No Rent " 
manifesto, although as we now know Parnell was 
brought against his will to affix his signature to that 
document. Here it may be said that the image of 
a great strong inflexible leader, always foreseeing 
events, planning combinations and movements and 



180 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

activities, and always directing the movements of 
his organisation — that is an image that did not re- 
spond to the reality in Parnell's case, nor probably 
in the case of any other great leader. Parnell, strong 
and dictatorial as he was, was again and again 
carried along on the current of movements of which 
he was a nominal leader, but whose forces he could 
not control. 

Looking into the matter narrowly it will be found 
that there was very little which Parnell actually 
created ; in almost every case he adopted what had 
already been set on foot by others, and as we have 
seen he was not infrequently forced to take a part 
contrary to his own judgment and desire. It would 
be equally false, however, to suppose that he was a 
mere figurehead. Whatever may have been his 
faults even as a political leader, there can be no 
doubt of the service which his great and masterful 
personality rendered to Ireland at the most critical 
stage of her development. It is necessary to judge 
of a man not by undue construction of any passages 
of his career or incidents of conduct or character, 
but by the complete scope of his accomplishment. 
Regarded in this manner Parnell seems to me to have 
been the greatest leader of whom Ireland can boast 
in the whole line of her history. 

The National League founded in 1884 took the 
place of the suppressed Land League, and it continued 
in activity till the " split," which followed as a con- 
sequence of the revelations of the divorce case in 
which Parnell was involved. Under the National 
League the famous Plan of Campaign was evolved. 
The original suggestion is said to have arisen in the 
fertile brain of the late Mr. Henry Labouchere. 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 181 

Roughly speaking the mode of procedure was this, 
that the tenants instead of paying their rents should 
put the money into a common fund. They thereupon 
offered the landlord equitable terms, and if he re- 
fused and proceeded to evictions the combined fund 
was used in the defence of the first victim attacked. 
The National League was succeeded by the National 
Federation which was founded in 1891 and lasted, 
though with waning vitality, until about 1895, and 
that again was succeeded by the United Irish League, 
which still exists and which is still powerful, but 
whose authority is being replaced all over Ireland 
by that of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. 

In Ireland the Gaelic League has accomplished a 
great work with which is especially associated the 
name of Dr. Douglas Hyde. To recount its activities 
would require a volume, but in a recent number of 
a provincial paper, " The Waterford News/' I find 
the following paragraph which seems to me to sum 
up the matter concisely and well : 

" In 1914 we celebrated the twenty-first anni- 
versary of the Gaelic League : we have now 
completed twenty-one years of constructive 
national effort for an Irish nation, for the per- 
petuity of Irish sentiment, for the realization of 
the great ideals of our forefathers and the cause 
of Gaelic civilisation. That we have succeeded 
in making a large section of the people of Ireland 
take a serious interest in their country ; made 
the grand old tongue of our ancestors respected 
throughout the land ; knocked a good deal of 
the gilt off the shoneens and the West Britons ; 
and induced a number of wealthy aristocrats 
to do something positive for Ireland — is a mag- 



182 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

nificent testimony to the tenacity of purpose 
of the men who, twenty-one years ago brought 
a new soul into Erinn." 
Of all the past leagues of which we have made 
mention since the days of the Fenians, none of them 
were secret except that of the Invincibles, and not one 
imposed any religious test. Indeed the only organisa- 
tion during the last hundred years which I can find 
having any definite religious stamp was that of the 
Catholic Association founded in 1809, with the ex- 
ception, of course, of church organisations formed as 
benefit societies. The Ancient Order of Hibernians 
was originally of such a character, but gradually in 
Ulster in view of the intolerance of Orange Lodges 
and of the whole system of Ascendancy it was 
thought advisable for the Hibernians to use their 
organisation in the way of direct antagonism to these 
forces. In public affairs recently, however, that 
organisation has spread to the South and West of 
Ireland, and so rapidly that some special cause must 
be sought to account for this remarkable display of 
vitality. The expansion may be found in part in the 
furious attacks launched against the organisation by 
Mr. William O'Brien who denounced the Hibernians 

under the title of Molly Maguires. 1 For it is a trait 

\ 

1 There was a small organisation in America fla fairly recent times, 
the members of which entitled themselves the Molly Maguires. The 
organisation was founded in 1854, in the anthracite coal mining 
district of N.E. Pennsylvania and continued till 1877. Whatever 
may have been its origin, the organisation acquired influence by the 
successful conduct of a strike of miners, but it became known at length, 
from 1865 onward, as a veritable nest of bandits, whose aims were 
robbery, and who did not shrink from murder. The organisation was 
very secret and close, limited to Catholics, and it ruled by intimida- 
tion. For a long time it baffled the State authorities, but as must 
inevitably happen in such cases, espionage and treachery, followed by 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 183 

of character that must never be lost sight of in 
dealing with Ireland that although the people can 
be led they always refuse most obstinately to be 
driven, and as the Ancient Order of Hibernians is 
under the control of Mr. Devlin the attacks of his 
political opponents were taken as a challenge, and 
the reply was the extension of the Hibernian organisa- 
tion. 

This was of course not the only cause of its ex- 
pansion, the near establishment of Home Rule has 
undoubtedly acted as a great stimulus, and for two 
reasons as far as I cau judge. One of these is the 
natural desire that men of good faith should step 
into the positions of authority, and another is per- 
haps the somewhat vaguer but always insistent 
feeling that the new Government should have a good 
backing of resolute men who in case of need could 
provide some form of physical support, if not of 
" physical force " as understood in the former and 
more strenuous times. 

I do not speak of these matters with any certainty, 
for this development of the Ancient Order of 
Hibernians is still too recent, and there has been no 
great occasion yet to demonstrate its power. More- 
over as the organisation is secret, its manner and 
intent can only be known to the general public by 
overt acts and decisions, and such acts, for the main 
part, seem to be on the same lines as those of the 

suspicions and panics, brought about the downfall of the Molly 
Maguires. The break up was greatly due to the firmness and energy 
of a master of industry, F. B. Gowan, and the determination of a 
detective, James McParlan, who joined the organisation in order to 
learn its secrets. Some of the members fled in time, the leaders who 
could be seized were duly hanged, and that was the end of the Molly 
Maguires. 



184 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

United Irish League which has undoubtedly ren- 
dered great services to the Irish cause. Many of 
the Irish Party, are, I believe, members of the 
Ancient Order of Hibernians. I am not a member, 
because at the threshold I have been stopped by 
considerations which have prevented me looking 
further. The Organisation imposes a religious test, 
it requires that a member be a Catholic, and that he 
give good proof of diligently practising his religious 
duties. I resolved from my first entry into public 
life that I would do whatever lay in my power to 
minimise the asperities of religious differences in 
Ireland, that I would endeavour to secure for Pro- 
testants complete equality of treatment in those 
cases where they were in a minority, and not more 
than equality where they were in the majority ; in 
other words I wished to see the question of religion 
placed beyond the purview of appointments to 
public offices, and I desire, as I have already said 
but which I may well repeat, that the very word 
" toleration " should be forgotten, that we should 
cease to esteem it a virtue not to oppress a man on 
account of his religion, and that in the place of 
toleration complete independence and freedom 
should be the law and the spirit of the people. I 
would rather disappear from Irish politics altogether 
on account of my cleaving fast to this principle, 
than win, if it were possible, the highest place, the 
highest emoluments, and lustre which might be the 
reward of renouncing these principles. I will leave 
the matter there. 

My intention has been not to form a catalogue of 
Irish organisations, but rather to indicate successively 
the prevailing spirit that has produced the principal 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 185 

organisations of modern times and the mode of 
their establishment. The detailed history of these 
organisations would be instructive, but it would 
be voluminous. Several books have been written 
on the Fenian movement alone, and from none is 
it possible to gain a vivid picture of the entire 
reality. 

The Gaelic Athletic Association is a powerful body, 
but though it is not unaffected by politics, yet its 
main objects are sufficiently indicated in its title, 
so that it is not necessary to refer to it further here. 

The All — For — Ireland League was founded by Mr. 
William O'Brien in the course of his fight with the 
Irish Parliamentary Party. It includes many men 
of influence in Ireland, Lord Dunraven, for example, 
and its objects might be summed up in the watch- 
words : Conference, Consent, Conciliation. I will 
not enlarge, for it would be difficult to approach 
either the persuasiveness or the force of language 
with which its founders and its members have advo- 
cated its claims. 

Quite recently another organisation has sprung 
up, and has spread still more rapidly than the 
Hibernians, with a rapidity in fact which reminds 
one of the American phrase " setting the prairie on 
fire." This is the organisation of the National 
Volunteers. Their creation has been the reply of the 
Nationalist parts of Ireland to the establishment in 
such extraordinary fashion, as we have seen, of the 
Ulster Volunteers. The movement in Ulster was 
founded in broad daylight, not as in the traditional 
Irish style in secrecy ; on the contrary with an ex- 
cess of advertisement which in the early days con- 
stituted its main strength and principal mode of 



186 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

action. The object of the movement was to establish 
a Provisional Government backed by physical force 
sufficient to resist any attempt of the Imperial 
Government to bring into reality the Home Rule Bill, 
if it should in the usual way become the law of the 
land. The Ulster Volunteers were recruited, they 
were equipped except in regard to arms, they were 
drilled and paraded, they were officered by Army 
officers, they were controlled or patronised and en- 
couraged by public functionaries, by Justices of the 
Peace, and by Privy Councillors. Their leaders 
preached sedition and promised rebellion. The 
Government, duly informed of all these proceedings, 
took no notice, officially at least ; they were again 
and again taunted and derided on the floor of the 
House, still they showed no sign. Finally came the 
great gun-running exploit, which suddenly changed 
a movement, picturesque but comparatively harm- 
less, into a formidable danger for the government 
of Ireland. Though the threats of civil war were 
sincere they appeared in an air of unreality, they 
smacked more of a penny dreadful than of serious 
business in the year 1914 ; the introduction of thou- 
sands of rifles and millions of cartridges and the 
placing of these in the hands of fanaticised volunteers 
have increased the chances of a civil war, which 
may be as fierce and bloody as in the end it will 
prove to have been futile. I do not say that such 
an event will take place, or even that it is probable ; 
I assert that it is possible. 

The gun-running might have been prevented by 
the exercise of a few obvious precautions. The 
Government had intended to take steps which, even 
more elaborate than those necessary to prevent 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 187 

gun-running, would have been effective in preserving 
Ulster in peace. Having resolved, they began to 
blunder. Difficulties arose in their path — the 
created difficulties which weak men always find. I 
will not dwell too long on this painful episode, for 
it would wreck a pathetic hope of mine, to hold in 
entire respect the wisdom, power, and judgment of 
the great figures of British statesmanship. 

We had the example of the ruler of the Army — one 
of the best of men — forced by circumstances to 
plead with the officers under his authority as to the 
extent to which they would obey the commands ; 
we had vague intimations of the influence of higher 
powers unnamed if not unknown, and whose 
authority we could only guess from acts unaccount- 
able otherwise, of responsible ministers. Parliament 
was laughed at ; powerful ministers became like 
pawns ; the Government was turned from its task by 
the cries of its adversaries, and in place of the spectacle 
of great statesmen coming down to the House and 
asserting the Law, we had a succession of gentlemen 
explaining incongruous situations by improbable 
statements and assuring the world that at no time 
had it been their intention to do the duty that lay 
in their path. And when at length that admirable 
feat of gun-running, carried out under their noses, 
had laughed them to scorn, we had certainly that 
promise of vindication, which never materialised, and 
also a speech from the one man of action in the 
Cabinet who roundly scolded the Opposition for an 
hour and a half. 

Such no doubt were the reflections of the lively 
youths of the South and West, who now form the 
rank and file of the National Volunteers. I say 



188 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

youths, for though the Volunteer movement from 
the beginning had some notable men at its head, Mr. 
Eion MacNeill, Sir Roger Casement, Mr. Kettle, the 
O'Rahilly, and others, there was such a spontaneity 
in the uprising of this body that evidently the 
Volunteers acted less on persuasion than on their 
instincts of Irishmen ready to fight. 

The Volunteer movement is only at the first stage 
of its career. Who can foresee its part in Irish 
history ? Already the inevitable " fissiparous " ten- 
dencies have become manifested. Undoubtedly at 
the beginning there was amongst the Volunteers a 
strong infusion of the Sinn Fein element and Sinn 
Fein ideas. At the same time the work of the Par- 
liamentary Party was reaching a crisis, and it was on 
all grounds inadvisable to divide the forces of the 
country. The original Provisional Government con- 
sented to a joint control, admitting nominees of the 
Irish Party in equal proportion. 

The outbreak of the war found the Volunteers 
hesitating as to their line of action. A certain pro- 
German feeling became manifested. A considerable 
number of the men were, however, called to the 
colours as reservists. The move of Sir Edward Car- 
son in offering the Ulster Volunteers to Lord Kitchener 
for service abroad put the Nationalist Volunteers in 
great difficulty as to an appropriate reply. Many 
impelled by military ardour joined the Army in the 
regular way ; the great majority declared they 
would stop at home and defend the country in case 
of invasions. The passing of the Home Rule Bill 
again changed the situation. The Home Rule Bill 
had found its way to the Statute Book, but with 
the condition of delay of at least one year — twelve 



IRISH ORGANISATIONS 189 

months fraught with possibility of change of vast 
magnitude. 

The Ulster Volunteers having gone to the war, to 
fight for the Empire and win distinction for them- 
selves, would return to Ireland stronger in position 
than ever. It could not be expected that officers of 
the Army, who before had shown great unwillingness 
to coerce them, and who now hailed them as comrades 
in arms, would be inclined to proceed to their sup- 
pression. Such being the conditions, Mr. Redmond 
adopted a course which the great majority of Irish 
representatives considered wise in advising the 
Volunteers to go to the front also to assist in defeating 
the common enemy. I will only mention an early 
proposal of my own to raise an Irish Brigade trained 
on Boer lines for service at the front ; this project 
was not supported. And so it has happened that 
within a year of their inception the Nationalist 
Volunteers, or as many of them as have been influenced 
by the Irish Party, have been placed under the com- 
mand of officers the majority of whom are no doubt 
hostile to their foundation, to their hopes, and to 
their ideals. 

That is one of the strange contradictions such as 
are met with so frequently in Irish history. Many of 
the Volunteers, even whose reason was convinced by 
the arguments of the Irish Party, found this denoue- 
ment too abrupt, and revolted. Some of the most 
authoritative of the original founders of the move- 
ment issued a Proclamation denouncing Mr. Red- 
mond's tactics and expelling his adherents ; he replied 
by reconstituting the governing body. Certain 
aspects of this affair will become clearer in considering 
the organisation of Sinn Fein. I will say candidly 



190 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

that those who from the first have adopted a pro- 
German or anti-English attitude have been consis- 
tent ; but they have lacked judgment and their 
policy would lead to disaster in Ireland. That 
policy is a policy of physical force and rebellion, but 
when no steps have been taken to prepare 
rebellion, and when no effective physical force is 
available, such a policy is simply mischievous. 



CHAPTER VII 

SINN FEIN 

No account of the present situation in Ireland would 
be even in the roughest manner adequate if it did 
not allow full weight to the Sinn Fein movement. 
The phrase Sinn Fein may be here interpreted, it 
simply means Ourselves, and that already indicates 
the spirit of the programme. In so far as it holds 
out a hope of future self-reliance, Sinn Fein is excel- 
lent, but as has so often happened in Irish history, 
a good programme, good intentions, zeal, ambition, 
self-sacrifice, have been lessened in value by reason 
of other elements imported, — narrowness of view, 
incompetence of plans, dissensions, recriminations. 
Like most movements of the kind which have 
appealed to the patriotism and a sort of inner spirit 
of the Irish people which really contains also the 
secret of their ultimate fate, Sinn Fein at first received 
enthusiastic support ; it promised independence to 
Ireland, fostering of industries and enterprises, the 
re-establishment of the Irish language, restoration 
of Irish traditions, and even old Irish dress, and 
the re-constitution of the Irish nation. 1 

1 For an exposition of the policy I have gone to the fountain head, 
the National Council. The statement begins : 

The National Policy of Sinn Fein was outlined in November, 
1905, and is based on the principle " that the Irish people are 

191 



192 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

Here already in the very attractiveness of the pro- 
gramme we find ideas tending to reduce it to failure. 

a free people and that no law made without their authority or 
consent is, or ever can be, binding on their conscience." It 
asserts that the General Council of County Councils presents the 
nucleus of a National authority and urges it to widen its activities 
from the exercise of purely consultative powers to the formula- 
tion and direction of lines of procedure for the whole Irish nation. 
The assertion of the existence of an Irish Constitution, the 
denial of the legality of the Union incorporating the Parliaments 
of Ireland and England (acknowledged de facto by the advocates 
of Unionism and the Home Rule Parliamentary movement) : 
the denial of the right of the English Parliament to legislate for 
Ireland, the withdrawal of voluntary Irish support from the 
armed forces of England, the advocacy of the establishment of a 
Voluntary Legislature comprising representatives of the Rural, 
Urban, and County Councils, Poor Law, and Harbour Boards, 
agricultural, commercial, and industrial interests and the Irish 
members elected to the English Parliament — these are the main 
political features of the Sinn Fein programme. 
This is certainly a bold conception, but the programme is not im- 
possible. Something similar has been realised, for change the term 
Ireland to Ulster and the National Council to the Provisional Govern- 
ment, and this part of the policy of Sinn Fein is seen to embody in 
other forms the principles adopted by the Ulster Tories. 

It must be remembered, however, that they had the advantage of a 
Government, which as a consequence of its neglect of duty allowed 
the administration of the law to become a mockery. Sinn Fein could 
never have counted on such misfeasance. The Ulstermen, moreover, 
had vast funds at their disposal, and these were essential to the carry- 
ing out of the programme. Sinn Fein only asked for an income of 
£800 a year, and this modest sum was not forthcoming. It will 
therefore be seen how far from reality were certain parts of their 
programme, such as " the establishment and maintenance of an Irish 
Consular system, the re-establishment of an Irish Mercantile Marine, 
the development of Irish Sea Fisheries, and Irish mineral resources, 
the control and management by an authority responsible to the Irish 
people of the transit systems in Ireland, the nationalisation of Irish 
Educational systems, and the creation of a National Civil Service com- 
prising the employes of all bodies responsible to the Irish people." 

This is only the outline of a programme which includes also re-affore- 
station, arterial drainage, reclamation of waste lands. Most of these 



SINN FEIN 193 

Nothing is more captivating and nothing is less 
practical than to talk in these years of grace of bring- 
ing back customs and traditions, or even costumes, 
that may have been appropriate to an Irish nation 
one thousand years ago, but which take no account 
of the conditions of our own times. In the brief 
glimpses we have taken of the " good old times " 
we have seen many things which well might make the 
least reflective pause ; it is only necessary to point 
out that in the full possession of their system the 
leaders of their day brought the country to ruin and 
eventually found themselves unable to put up any 
sort of defence against the invader. 

Is it not better to take a leaf from the book of the 
Japanese, who are desirous of preserving their race 
and nation and of guarding intact what is really 
essential and vital in their ideals, yet who, after deep 
thought, determined that they must cut themselves 
adrift from many fetters and strike out once for all 
resolutely into the paths of progress ? They were 
eclectic in their regard of the world, they studied 
other nations, they did not hesitate to adopt what 
they thought was the best in each ; they recognised 
that our modern civilisation differed from their own 
and other great civilisations of the past mainly in 
the works of science, and all that that implies ; they 
set themselves to work with fervent zeal. It became 
the veritable spirit of guidance and of co-operation, 
amongst the young Japanese — the ideal of the ad- 
vancement of their country. One generation sufficed 

schemes are excellent, but to carry them into effect would require the 
expenditure of millions. Some of the projects have been taken in 
hand by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, 
which utilises considerable funds voted by Parliament. 

13 



194 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

to produce a revolution, a revolution none the less im- 
portant and far-reaching because carried out in peace. 

I saw in his old age the great organiser of this 
movement, Marquis Ito. As I looked upon him 
with his stunted frame, his big head, his Mongolian 
features, his yellowish brown complexion, straggling 
beard, and muddy coloured eyes, bleared and blink- 
ing, gazing with curiosity, yet with an air of always 
responding to some constant inner reflection, shining 
at times with a strange light ; when I looked upon 
this old Mongolian type and considered the gigantic 
work which he had performed I felt, as so often, 
that such men are partly inconscient instruments 
of progress — " he moulded better than he knew " — 
and I felt too what internal resolves must have 
preceded his great decision, how he was dragged 
back by all the traditions of the feudal system, by 
all the memories of what he had been taught as the 
history of Japan, by all of the contempt of the 
foreigner, the hatred of aliens which is too sedulously 
preached to all of us, how it would have been easier 
and smoother, and at the outset far more popular, 
to be carried with the crowd than to obey the inti- 
mations of that inner signal, than to fix his eyes 
steadfastly on the great ideal and to march towards 
his goal with clear purpose, firm step, and never 
flinching courage. 

I saw by his side a young count of the Empire, 
tall, straight, handsome even according to our Euro- 
pean model, alert and cordial in manner. I con- 
trasted him with the Marquis Ito, and even while 
admiring the air of progress which emanated from 
his personality, I could not help feeling he was 
inferior in some respects to the great leader in whose 



SINN FEIN 195 

train he had come, and this feeling was not dissipated 
even when, with veritable American spirit and in a 
voice which showed me that he had imbibed many 
notions in the States, he said to me : " I will be busy 
with the Marquis for some time, but I say, old man, 
come round and have a yarn later. The old boy is 
not much of a man of the world, you know, but I 
want to see a little of Paris/' 

In all this is there no lesson for Ireland ? Is 
there none in the still more famous story of Peter 
the Great ? Is there none even in the story of 
Cromwell ? Let us be eclectic, also let us not seek 
for shallow popularity or clap-trap applause, but 
let us brace ourselves up to the full to the duty we 
owe to the people. At the outset I find there is a 
great centre of good in Sinn Fein, although my 
principal contact with the movement has been 
through the reckless abuse poured upon myself and 
also on the Party to which I am now a member ; 
but these matters are trivial when we come to con- 
sider the best policy of a Nation. The spirit of self- 
reliance is already excellent. The spirit of internal 
development, of rehabilitation from within, must 
be the animating principle of all projects for the real 
advancement of Ireland. On the other hand a con- 
tinuous vituperation of England, even though it 
should win applause in certain quarters, is neither 
good nor just. Even according to the valid pro- 
gramme of Sinn Fein itself, when Ireland becomes 
developed, when Ireland has launched out upon her 
own industries and enterprise, England would be the 
best customer for her products. To allow sterile 
quarrels and antiquated hates to stand in the way 
of such an advantage is both puerile and unpatriotic. 



196 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

The Sinn Fein party issued a newspaper called 
" Sinn Fein " which at one time promised to be 
powerful and stimulating ; it was the successor of a 
paper called " The United Irishman," and that was, 
I believe, the lineal descendant of a journal pub- 
lished in France, founded and edited by Miss Maud 
Gonne and styled " Irlande Libre." " Sinn Fein " 
was edited from the beginning, I believe, by Mr. 
Arthur Griffith, himself a good writer possessing 
many of the qualifications of a capable journalist, 
but apparently lacking in that which is most im- 
portant of all to a leader of a political party, the 
power to grow, to develop, to absorb, to assimilate, 
to become great, to lead the way to the future. 

" Sinn Fein " at the beginning was a very lively 
paper, rather than what our Yankee friends would 
call " a real live paper." It scintillated with wit, 
it glowed with humour, it effervesced with ideas. 
There truly was found an " outcrop of young en- 
thusiasm " — Carlyle's full phrase contains the word 
foolish before young, but though time and fate might 
afterwards apply that term to " Sinn Fein " one 
would indeed have been hard of heart who could 
have said so at the beginning. Yet even there the 
elements of vitality were lacking. The outcrop of 
brilliant ideas need never have been harvested for 
us in Ireland. We have always had more than we 
have known rightly what to do with. Our education 
has always been too literary, not sufficiently scien- 
tific, and we have always been too much inclined to 
be satisfied when we have given emission to a bril- 
liant idea or coined a rhetorical phrase. That has 
been the bane of Irish politics. It was one of the 
causes of Grattan's failure. 



SINN FEIN 197 

What I would like to see in these leaders of Ire 
land's hope, such as Sinn Fein promised to be, is 
something more of the training and the faculty of 
the engineer. For the engineer having decided on 
a work to be carried out proceeds then by a process 
of analysis, to which certainly he is helped by estab- 
lished rules and formula?, to work down until at 
length he arrives at the ground on which he stands. 
Then he develops a definite programme, in which 
the steps, retracing in the reality his analysis, proceed 
from that standpoint, and where everything he 
does tends to advance steadily and consecutively to 
the structure which he has projected ; finally in this 
regular and methodical manner the work ordained 
is completed, and then we hold a big celebration 
and give vent to more or less commonplace expres- 
sions of joy. Some leaders of Sinn Fein are too apt 
to begin with such expressions, displayed in corusca- 
ting flamboyance, but leading to no solid work. 

One discouraging feature at the very beginning 
of the Sinn Fein movement was precisely that which 
to its followers appeared the most attractive. That 
was the harping on the Hungarian policy as it was 
called. It appears that at a certain point in the 
history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Hun- 
garian delegates quitted the Imperial Parliament, 
and as a consequence of this step relations between 
the two countries became so critical that Hungary 
obtained Home Rule, the Austrian Emperor being 
styled King of Hungary. Sinn Fein argued that 
Ireland should adopt the same policy ; that is, that 
the eighty-three members of the Nationalist party 
should abandon Westminster and devote themselves 
to the establishment of the Irish Nation. 



198 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

There is nothing more misleading in political ques- 
tions than arguments drawn from the analogies of 
other countries. It has been my own fortune to 
live for a considerable time in foreign countries and 
to have the opportunity of noting how the structure 
of the social and political system depends on a 
complex of factors which in one country are different 
to those in another. It is impossible to transport 
any of these factors or any combination of them and 
graft them immediately on to the system of another 
country. Moreover, what we may be tempted to 
admire in another country and hold as characteristic 
may indeed be characteristic, but may be precisely 
the difficulty which that country is endeavouring to 
escape from in its onward progress. Thus, for in-, 
stance, taking the model of the mother of Parlia- 
ments, where the system of two chambers has grown 
up with no logical plan, but by a series of historical 
incidents, we have seen the same model in its formal 
aspect introduced into other countries, as in France 
and in the Dominions, and becoming a cause of 
weakness and indeed of ridicule. 

Even in reading the arguments of the late Mr. 
Gladstone on the analogies which support Home 
Rule, I confess they seem to me, though I agree with 
the ultimate conclusion, as specimens of faulty 
reasoning ; and in fact subsequent history has given 
them its condemnation. The institutions of a country 
are not only determined by accidents of history, but 
by a thousand factors in the character and the tem- 
perament of the people. To make the analogy really 
effective, therefore, it would be necessary to analyse 
to such a degree as to make plain the manner in 
which the position was determined by these factors, 



SINN FEIN 199 

and to compare these with the correspondences in 
the other country point by point. Even then the 
argument would be precarious because there are 
factors such as the temperament and aspirations of 
the people which admit of no definition and which 
are indeed not constant quantities. I will go further 
and say that while history is an instructive study to 
those who read with discernment, and with the very 
active exercise of judgment, there is nothing more 
misleading nor overbalancing to weak minds. It is 
pitiful to hear, as I have heard, distinguished Irish 
scholars whimpering on obscure facts about the battle 
of the Boyne or on the persecutions of Elizabeth, 
and drawing therefrom conclusions tending to retro- 
grade moves in England or Ireland. 

To come down to a point I think the Dublin Sinn 
Feiners failed to show their usual wit or humour in 
regard to this portentous panoply of the " Hungarian 
Policy." When the Hungarian delegates left the 
Imperial Parliament they were the representatives of 
a people hardly less in numerical strength than the 
Austrians ; a people accustomed to war, trained and 
armed ; and they left at a time when the position of 
Austria was not too secure in regard to the European 
balance of power. The departure of the delegates 
simply meant civil war. It was like the withdrawal of 
ambassadors when the tension between two countries 
is at breaking point. 

But translate that for a moment to Irish condi- 
tions, and look at the matter seriously. I say seri- 
ously, expressly, because this is the pith of Sinn 
Fein's action, and if its general policy apart from 
this delusion had been advocated with large minded- 
ness it might have played a considerable part in Irish 



200 IRELAND : VITAL HOUE 

affairs. The policy was first advocated when the 
Conservatives were in power. Think of the feelings 
of Mr. Balfour, as Prime Minister, when he learned 
one morning at breakfast that the Irish members 
had gone home. It takes no ordinary Sinn Feiner, 
but a mind superior to the sense of humour, to 
imagine the great casuist thrown into consternation 
by this fact ; and it requires something more than 
the artist's faculty to picture the heroic delegates 
returning to their homes, with the brass bands hesi- 
tating between " See the Conquering Hero Comes," 
and " Nothing in My Hand I Bring ! " 

Or again cast the mind back to the condition of 
affairs on the establishment of the Union. We have 
heard a good deal of the iniquity of the English 
Government. We ought to insist rather on the 
ignominy of the Irish Members, but taking the 
iniquity at its worst, what would have been thought if 
in addition to depriving Irishmen of their own Parlia- 
ment, Pitt had also refused them any representation 
at Westminster ? There would indeed have risen a 
cry to make the welkin ring. But that is precisely 
the position to which the Sinn Fein policy would 
reduce the Irish people. So far from the Govern- 
ment in return promising them autonomy, or the 
heaven-sent boon of a King of their own, I am in- 
clined to think that it would begin by running rapidly 
through Parliament a Bill for the redistribution of 
seats which, without any compensation, would reduce 
the number of members, and so get rid for ever of 
the tantalising, and often dangerous, opposition of a 
large Irish Party. 1 

1 Sinn Fein at one time held up as an example to follow a certain 
Marcellin Albert. There had been a great falling off in the sale of 



SINN FEIN 201 

The Hungarian policy, we have noted, was really 
an intimation of war in reserve. Such a war would 

the light wines of the South of France, and the small vignerons were 
cast into dire straits. One of these, M. Marcellin Albert, raised a 
furious agitation which blazed for a time in the newspapers. The 
popular champion made his way to Paris, and sought an interview 
with M. Clemenceau, who was then Prime Minister. M. Clemenceau, 
ascertaining that he was " hard up," paid his fare back to the Midi, 
and that was the last heard of Marcellin Albert's agitation. 

The difficulty of interpreting the events that arise in a foreign 
country is recognised when we read accounts of the politics of this 
nation as seen through German spectacles. It was believed apparently 
in Imperial circles that Ulster and Women's Suffrage would prevent 
England stirring a finger in the war. 

Most of the incursions of Sinn Fein into the domain of Foreign 
affairs have been unfortunate. At the outbreak of the great Con- 
tinental war a section of the Sinn Feiners in Dublin and in certain of 
the country districts favoured the cause of Germany. I have even 
heard proposals put forward for a " Triple Alliance : Germany, Austria, 
and Ireland." In what form they expected that mutual aid would 
be given, I do not know, for I have heard the same people ridicule the 
notion of sending Volunteers out of Ireland, and assert that if the 
German forces landed they would defend the territory " inch by inch." 

Another proposal I heard made by a representative man was that 
in return for Ireland's neutrality Germany should set up an Irish 
Republic. Germany, however, would not be in a position to exhibit 
her gratitude in this form unless she had first conquered Great Britain. 
And if she set foot in Ireland she might show resentment, as in 
Belgium, to those who contested her right of friendly invasion, and 
fought her " inch by inch." 

Contemplate for a moment Germany victorious on land and sea, 
treating England as a subject province, and bringing back to Europe 
the mediaeval regime of Kaiserthum — I can imagine the Teuton to 
fear God and nothing else in the world, except indeed the unquench- 
able aspirations for Freedom, the subtle play of the ideas of progress. 
In these circumstances the Irish Republic could not long remain a 
peer and ally of the German Empire. I do not write in any aversion 
to the idea of an Irish Republic — Heaven forbid — but I wish to point 
out the tendency of some leaders in Ireland to refuse to see facts, to 
shrink from raising their minds to a great conception if it runs counter 
to a petty and personal prejudice. Yet, though sometimes by many 



202 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

have been disastrous to Austria. In conditions of 
the kind the policy of Hungary is generally likely 
to be successful. When there is no war in reserve 
and no materials of offence or defence, such a policy 
is not super-statesmanship, it is ridiculous. It may 
seem strange that clever men should harp on this 
string. We must, however, remember the words of 

zigzag courses, the common sense of Ireland eventually finds its own 
manner of expression. I do not care to dismiss any movement or 
any phase of Irish life till I have endeavoured to pierce to its hidden 
spring, its true psychology. And after all, what lay at the bottom 
of the pro-Germanism of the Irish was no especial love of the Celt for 
Teutonic ideals, but the deep-rooted dislike for England. Let us face 
that frankly. It is too much to ask every honest peasant in Ireland 
to be a philosophical historian. England is known to him not by the 
glories of her science or her literature, not even by the boasted free- 
dom of institutions, subject to various cramping mediaeval forms and 
prerogatives ; England has been made known to him by the arrogant 
village police-sergeant, by the red-coated soldiers brought in to evict 
him, to demolish his home at the instance of a spendthrift and 
tyrannical landlord ; England is known to him by a century of tradi- 
tion of struggle and suffering, by popular songs and stories told by 
the fireside ; by a feeling of resistance, of safeguarding himself by 
" physical force," or when this failed on a larger scale, by his own 
violence, the obstinate rage of the patriot defending his patriotism, 
the faith, as Michael Davitt called it, of Nationalism ; the instinct of 
the mortal creature to resist the destruction of its being, its indi- 
viduality. 

This feeling cannot be well combatted by mere brute opposition, 
by sneers, nor even by the formal show of reason. Yet there are 
circumstances in the history of a nation where a persistence in the 
mood of obstinacy means destruction. A way out must be found. 
That will come in the feeling that the clash of force, the petty battles 
on narrow issues, do not sum up the life of a nation. A derivative 
must be found in education, in progressive enlightenment, eventually 
in science ; the horizon must be enlarged ; not hatred to England 
must be encouraged, but honest rivalry and healthy emulation ; 
and a destiny must be pointed out where the great qualities of the 
Celt may have free play, even though it be eventually in full co- 
operation with those not less great of the Teuton. 

There is a glory there. Forward, Young Ireland, to the work ! 



SINN FEIN 203 

Michael Davitt about physical force as a " faith." 
It is perhaps more extraordinary that these politicians 
should have found an audience willing to listen to 
them, especially one so quick witted as the Irish. 
Some deep explanation must be sought for this con- 
dition. I think it will be found in something not 
unsympathetic to lovers of Ireland. It is the feeling 
of resistance, the desire even against impossible odds 
still to fight on, to shut one's eyes to the prospect of 
defeat, to cling to the last shred of hope, to be 
prepared for struggle and self-sacrifice rather than 
definitely to abandon the spirit which has animated 
their breasts. That spirit, it seems to me, should be 
kept alive, but it should be guided not in the direc- 
tion of disappointment, but to an avenue where there 
will be full scope for courage, energy and vigour, and 
fruitful reward in the progress of Ireland. 

Then again if there had been any remote hope of 
feasibility in the Sinn Fein programme as sketched 
by its leaders, it would have been defeated by the 
narrowness of view and petty tempers of some of 
these politicians. The great objection to physical 
force always has been that there is not sufficient force 
available. In the days of the United Irishmen the 
fact was made evident. That was the time when 
Wolfe Tone and his confreres were plotting to make 
an impression on Napoleon Bonaparte and to concert 
plans with Carnot, the organiser of victory. They 
had told Bonaparte that there were four hundred 
thousand United Irishmen enrolled, organised, and 
drilled, and no doubt they believed it. A good many 
of that vast host were Ulstermen. The Ulster man 
retains the imaginativeness of the Irishman with the 
capacity for arithmetic of the Scot. Consequently 



204 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

his imagination runs into figures. I recollect a good 
Ulster man, a Fenian, who managed to preserve the 
national characteristics of a fiery soul, encased in a 
solemn appearance. He used to say that he had a 
hundred thousand men all of good standing. This 
formidable army only existed in dreams. There is 
nothing more fantastic than the dreams of your 
stern John Knox-like ironside. 

And so to return to Bonaparte, that acute young 
man did not believe Wolfe Tone and still less the 
others. He had an instinctive feeling for rameis, 
being a Southerner and capable of indulging in it 
himself on occasion. But mainly he was a man of 
action, and he knew that for action he must look to 
the reality of things, and he had already made his 
own enquiries and worked the matter out in some 
detail. He was able to astonish the Irish delegates 
by throwing into the midst of their somewhat 
vapoured ideas the exact information, which was new 
to them, for instance, of the state of the cannon at 
Waterford. Had there have been many men of the 
stamp of Wolfe Tone, Bonaparte would I think have 
done business with them, but as it was he weighed 
the chances and decided on his Egyptian campaign 
— a still more grandiose dream of which in history 
we see only the unlucky tentatives. 

From that date the chance of Irishmen pursuing 
the policy of physical force has steadily declined. Nor 
have they advanced with the rise of the Sinn Fein 
party. I could never see in the Sinn Fein programme 
any attempt to create or build a force. Certainly 
there was a good deal of what the Yankees call 
" shooting off their mouths." The paper " Sinn 
Fein " was generally readable, less perhaps in what 



SINN FEIN 205 

should have been the solid parts of the fare than on 
account of the amusing squibs and pasquinades of 
the irreverent young writers, some of them appar- 
ently aesthetic young women or advanced damsels 
enjoying the first fling of their emancipation. Or 
now and again some new poet, Padraic Colum, James 
Stephens or The Mountainy Singer, essaying their first 
arms and giving lively promise of their future power. 
Then again the inevitable personal abuse and re- 
crimination, and then sometimes, athwart all this, 
something that made one grieve to see so much good 
rendered valueless — some article or series of studies 
showing sane views on Irish affairs, displaying a larger 
conception than that of most politicians, a veritable 
apprehension of what the life and activity of the 
nation should be, or throwing forth helpful sugges- 
tions towards a great policy of development. 

Then again Sinn Fein, this expositor of all that 
was sterling and staunch in Irish politics, sometimes 
wobbled grievously. At first it was militant, and 
apparently anti-clerical ; at a later part it seemed 
to revel in the very odour of sanctity ; then this 
mood of innocuous blessedness gave way to over- 
tures to the politicians. It became tentatively the 
supporter of Mr. William O'Brien. But the most 
fatal flaw in all its principles was its own high 
standard of perfection. The morgue britannique was a 
pale complexion of the soul compared to the pride 
of the Sinn Fein leaders. The exclusiveness of the 
Carlton Club withered before the restricted circle of 
these saviours of Ireland. There is a French proverb 
— and the French are not unlike the Irish — II n'est 
pas de pur qui ne trouve un plus pur qui Vepure. It 
may be roughly translated : There is no high patriot 



206 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

but finds a higher patriot ready to call him a hired 
patriot. 

And so watching the progress of the Sinn Fein 
party with no little curiosity and with great sym- 
pathy, I have regretted that the circle of the Brah- 
mins has continually decreased, a decrease materially 
represented by the progressive exiguity of the paper. 
Thus at the present moment the true and veritable 
saviours of Ireland might be counted on the fingers 
of the hand. One is reminded of the Scotch parson 
who declared that there were only two elect — him- 
self and Tonal, and who added reflectively, " I'm no 
sure thus o' Tonal. " This is excellent for theology, but 
it is not good for physical force. The Sinn Fein pro- 
gramme was magnificent, but it was not war. 

I remarked that the Irish were like the French. 
A French politician once said to me that a distin- 
guished philosopher had remarked of his com- 
patriots : What can you do with a country where 
the people drink red wine at the summer tempera- 
ture of thirty-eight centigrade ? That was a bou- 
tade not quite fair to the French; there is a great 
fund of common sense in the French, and Jules 
Claretie said that common sense was the back-bone 
of wit. Translating the analogy to Ireland we find 
that the summer temperature is not so high, but the 
pristine energy of the people, to speak of nothing more, 
compensates for that. Courage, impetuosity, in- 
trepidity, recklessness to danger, are all excellent 
at times, especially in action, but much less in 
thought. The man who accomplishes anything, it 
seems to me, even in the dubious paths of politics, no 
matter how high may be his ideal or fervent his 
aspirations, is he who in forming a programme thinks 



SINN FEIN 207 

seriously, whether gradually or hastily, yet with 
judgment, with a very present sense of realities. His 
programme and his suggestions should be the scheme 
of a reality which will be presented in the march of 
events. A programme so edified is best even for 
the conduct of a fiery host, for it canalises their 
energies, maps out for them the conditions of vic- 
tory, and eventually adds to their fire by a confidence 
which redounds to faith. 

Can we not engraft in our politics something of 
what is excellent in Sinn Fein ? I would be loathe to 
leave Sinn Fein with a depreciatory word, I would 
like to see its great principle reverberate through 
the land, I would like to see its little paper grow in 
size and expand in influence. But I would like to 
see it tempered, not with coldness or the mere 
shilly-shallying prudence which the politicians call 
wisdom, but with seriousness of thought, sanity, 
judgment, and a real determination which springs 
from a grip of realities. 

I oppose whipping up hatred against England. 
Any attempt to boycott English goods, any attempt 
to foster ill-feeling between the two countries, is to 
be condemned, but I see no reason why Irishmen 
should not hold their own in their own country, grow 
strong, not merely in principles, not merely in in- 
tellect, but in position, knowledge, acumen, and 
energy, so that instead of trying to build up a miser- 
able Chinese wall of seclusion, they may throw their 
gates open to Englishmen, meet them on equal 
terms, beat them often, take lessons from them 
sometimes, improve good understandings always, 
and eventually in mutual support find that each has 
advanced and strengthened the country he loves. 



208 IKELAND : VITAL HOUR 

Mutual aid, co-operation. There one strikes to 
something deeper than the ephemeral passions of 
politics ; there we find a principle accordant with 
the universal movement of all things ; it is in the 
very constitution of the world and in the character 
of life that therein must be found the best terms of 
human intercourse. This, which is true in the 
wider scope, loses nothing of its value when applied 
to particular cases, as, for instance, to England and 
Ireland. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PARLIAMENT 

There was once, if one can credit the records, a 
great Parliament. It was the representative of a 
people. It was constituted by a single chamber. 
The building was grandiose and appropriate, erected 
for the convenience of members; not they for 
its worship. These members were distinguished, 
moreover ; they spoke freely and with eloquence ; 
they touched deeply on the stops of life ; but they 
came to practical issues ; and in one brief session 
they disposed of a vast amount of business. That 
was in Hell, if we are to believe a certain John 
Milton, noted in Parliamentary circles as the secre- 
tary of Oliver Cromwell, and esteemed by a few as 
the author of " Paradise Lost/' from which poem I 
get the reference. Incidentally, I may say that I 
have come to read " Paradise Lost " as a sort of 
spiritual autobiography, the record of the pilgrimage 
of the soul of Milton, and thus I recognise the charac- 
ters. Beelzebub was Strafford, Belial was Bucking- 
ham with a touch of Charles II, as to Satan he was 
the picture of an unregenerated Milton himself. 

I am not wantonly introducing discordant images. 

That vision of the great Conclave of Hell has helped 

me to keep my balance in the Great Inquest of the 

Nation, as I have heard Parliament called by two 

14 209 



210 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

remarkable orators, Mr. Asquith and Mr. Devlin; 
and I reflected — inquest, doubtless, because it sits on 
so many dead Bills. 

Irreverent language ! Yes, but that is the very 
point to which I mean to come. A man has already 
lost the sense of realities, he is in danger of losing 
his soul, when he begins to reverence — as so many 
Parliamentarians — the very furniture of the House, 
the seating accommodation — none too good — or the 
shabby strip of dubious material which marks the 
position of the " Bar of the House." 

Is it any wonder then that they have completely 
surrendered their intelligence to the invisible but 
potent influence of traditions of varied origins, and 
that they worship shams and humbugs that enthral 
their brains ? Like so many new Saint Augustines 
they believe, " because absurd." From this point of 
view the greatest speech ever uttered in the House of 
Commons was CromwelFs, " Take away that bauble ! " 

Some years before I entered the House of Commons 
I had lofty opinions of the qualifications necessary 
for a legislator, so much so that like Rasselas in the 
Happy Garden, when told all that went to the 
making of a poet, I felt inclined to say : Now, I per- 
ceive that no man can be a Member of Parliament. 

I thought that the legislator should be not only 
a man of high education, but endued also with that 
philosophic spirit as well as philosophic training that 
enables him to know the values of various forms of 
education, to see their trend and development, and 
the relation of that education to the character, re- 
sources, and circumstances of the nation : I con- 
sidered that he should be not only a student of 
political economy, but one who had so well and 



PARLIAMENT 211 

rightly grasped the principles of that science that 
he could apply them to every problem that arose in 
the complex development of a nation's industries. 

And as the nation spends lavish millions on arma- 
ments, it seemed to me also that he should make 
himself so far familiar with the politics and charac- 
teristics of the other leading nations that he should 
be able wisely to interpret events. He should be a 
travelled man, who had made a voyage of observa- 
tion ; he should know the French and German 
languages at least. Then there were the local events 
of which he should have made a particular study. 
He should speak with gravity, with point and effect, 
but, if possible, not without grace of manner, or 
even a seasoning of Attic salt. 

Above all he should have character. There he 
should be all steel. Independence of spirit, purpose, 
unflinching integrity ; these should be his charac- 
teristics, not set forth aggressively or obtrusively, 
but, like Teufelsdrockh's learning, there necessarily 
and of course. 

Now I have come to acknowledge — and I say it 
with a serious sense of regret — some of the qualifica- 
tions of my model legislator seem ridiculous, others, 
and these principally the gifts of character, fatal, or 
at least with difficulty conservable. 

And yet since I entered Parliament my respect 
for the institution has in some regards increased ; 
for instance, in reference to the character of the indi- 
vidual members. I have found them as a rule 
serious, well-meaning men, courteous, accessible, 
and helpful. Moreover, the House is in its own par- 
ticular mode a democratic body. A man is judged 
both on the floor of the House and in the social 



212 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

intercourse within the House — speaking generally — 
more for his own worth and character than for 
adventitious circumstances of wealth or birth. I 
have sat at the same table with an aristocrat of 
high lineage, and a democrat whose origin was 
" wrop in mistry " ; I found the democrat's con- 
versation the more interesting. This might not 
always be the case, for also I found at times it was 
possible to live on terms of social amity, or even 
in agreeable commerce, with men of diametrically 
opposite standpoints. Why not, indeed ? In the 
old days, did not the duellists salute each other 
politely before submitting their points of honour to 
shrewd thrusts and cunning turns of the wrist ? I 
have walked up Whitehall at midnight with one of 
the fiercest antagonists of the Cause I advocate, but 
we did not discuss politics. Certainly I would have 
made no objection to such a discussion, but it would 
have been useless if not vexatious. In important 
matters the opinions of members are not changed by 
arguments in the House. Once indeed a distinguished 
member told me that a speech of mine had turned 
his vote, and I was astonished. The subject, how- 
ever, was the exemption of dogs from vivisection. 

Yet speeches are listened to in the House, even the 
worst. There is no assembly more considerate to a 
bad speaker, nor is this entirely a case of " class 
interest/' The House gives a member credit for 
sincerity — almost pathetically offering him the 
solatium of its sympathy — and it is earnestly desirous 
of knowing a man's point of view. On the other hand 
the House forms the most critical of audiences, for 
it has heard many good speeches — good speeches 
according to its own special standards. And it 



PARLIAMENT 213 

listens to speeches with an intentness which at times 
has amused me, for though speeches do not alter 
votes they do give indications of the trend of those 
subtle dynamic currents which eventually determine 
opinion. 

To sum up then we find in the House, as Byron long 
ago said of the Lords, not many orators but a great 
fund of critical faculty and a strong reserve of 
common sense. 

Yet, as I have looked along the benches I have often 
felt how inefficient was the system of Parliament, for 
I perceived so much energy, and thought, and good- 
will locked up, baffled, cancelled. The Party system 
is in great measure responsible for that condition. 
I have known a member of great natural ability, great 
experience, devotion to principles, come to me and 
say, when I expressed regret at his approaching retire- 
ment, " Oh, a dressed-up broomstick could have done 
all I have done in the House." 

I think on the whole a dressed-up broomstick would 
have done better from the Party point of view, and 
have been more appreciated. A dressed-up broom- 
stick is the valued Party-man ; given wealth, it 
reaches the haven of the Lords. 

On the other hand during a division I have known 
a Whip to run after a recalcitrant member in a lobby 
and attempt even with force to bring him to the other 
lobby. When he failed I heard him use language 
which was not only such as may be covered by the 
term " unparliamentary," but such also as give a 
glimpse of his peculiar standards of public morality. 

In one of her stories, " Castle Rackrent," Maria 
Edgeworth gives the reflections of an old retainer ; 
to wit, that it was very honourable of the landlord 



214 IEELAND: VITAL HOUR 

to vote as he did, for it was altogether against his 
principles, but he had got the money for it. This 
vein of irony amused me intensely when I first read 
it, but time has apparently blunted my zest, and the 
House of Commons has so often rebuffed my innocent 
impulse, that I have been compelled to reconsider 
the situation. The flowers most difficult of cultiva- 
tion in that hotbed are — truth, candour, consistency. 

Special standards are set up, a special jargon has 
been invented to set in relief as shining public virtues 
what in the private man would be called cowardice, 
hypocrisy, denial of justice. 

A distinguished member arises and declares that a 
certain policy is fraught with various ills, of which 
the " Breaking-up of the Empire " is the least terrific ; 
to follow that policy would mean the betrayal of a 
National Trust ; but since the majority of the Party 
have adopted it, he too will join them, and they may 
rest assured that this policy will have no more zealous 
advocate, no more loyal upholder. 

This is the condensation of a type of speech that 
is always received with applause, and which it is 
customary to designate as a " statesmanlike utter- 
ance." That " British Genius for Compromise " has 
been so extolled in Parliament and on the platform 
that it has become regarded as the chief political 
virtue, and its scope of reference has been so extended 
that it sometimes includes compromise of truth, com- 
promise of justice, compromise of honour. 

The whole tendency of Parliament being, as we 
have here seen, to submerge the " private member," 
and to erect on his ruin the little hierarchy of the 
Cabinet ; what sort of super-men have we there ? 
In the first place there is nothing of Plutarch's men 



PARLIAMENT 215 

about them. Plutarch's men were distinguished 
above all by character, and character, as Plutarch 
understood, would be fatal on the Treasury Bench. 
Let us hold the balance fairly. The old granitic 
character, even the great types of Cato or of Timoleon, 
if ever they really existed as we are taught to conceive 
of them, are gone : Your modern may have less money 
in the bank of character, but he requires more to hand 
of small change for the thousand and one contin- 
gencies of a complex world. Still less are the men of 
the Caesar or Napoleon type suitable, men of great 
and daring spirit, who, above all, want to accomplish 
things. Here is a distinct gain, you will say ; we 
have had too many of these degenerates. We have 
reached a higher stage of evolution, and it is right 
to expect of us some finer development. And yet, 
and yet ! When I think of Napoleon Bonaparte, and 
cast my eye along the Treasury Bench, I am almost 
tempted to revise this position. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, that degenerate representa- 
tive of a nation that we were taught until recently to 
regard as inferior, as " decadent/' that little man, I re- 
peat, could sit in his cabinet for four hours in the morn- 
ing and do more effective work, work that Englishmen 
most especially prize, material work, the building of 
roads and bridges, the organising of departments, 
more valid work in four hours than our Parliament, 
apart from routine matters, accomplishes in as many 
months, or even years. 1 Yes, you may retort, but 

1 Most of this chapter was written before the outbreak of the Euro- 
pean War. We then had the spectacle of a rush of important measures 
through Parliament with maximum speed. Did that circumstance 
restore my respect for Parliament ? On the contrary, it seemed to me 
the final condemnation. A grant of a hundred million sterling was passed 
without debate and without control. Severe repressive legislation — 



216 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

he was a wicked man, lie was a despot, lie made wars. 
Granted, if yon please, with every crime of militarism 
and aggression that reads so damning against 
foreigners. But the fact returns, the stupefying 
truth, that this little man had accomplished great 
things, did establish large and enduring works, while 
our statesmen of the highest grade, our stars in this 
great imperial world gossip, potter, and fumble, and 
lose their nerve on the problems fit for local councils. 
There is something to be seen to, there ! 

When a Tory party is in power, the Government 
bears itself as the director of the nation's policy. 
With all my respect for the Liberals I have never 
been able to attain, with regard to them, such a high 
appreciation. They demean themselves like servitors. 
Yes, but is that not excellent, servitors of the people ? 
It would be excellent if they were servitors of the 
people, but their attitude is that of sacrificing the 
deepest principles of democracy in deference to the 

I do not say that it was not necessary — was sanctioned. The appoint- 
ment of one of the chief officers of the army as Minister of State for 
War was followed a few days later, in the absence of Parliament, by 
a virtual coup d'itat under cover of military law, a coup d'etat none 
the less real because the powers were directed to the security of the 
country, and were exercised with discretion. 

Nevertheless this abdication of the rights of Parliament at a crisis, 
this vertiginous legislation in an Assembly that had after years of talk 
given no effect to its conclusions on matters of great importance, this 
and other circumstances connected with the crisis, such as the co- 
operation of the former opponents of the Government even in non- 
essentials, opened my eyes to a depth of pretence, even greater than 
I had supposed, in our current procedure. The two Front Benches 
now appear to me somewhat as the opposing barristers in a lawsuit, 
fighting their sham battles before a mystified public. Parliament as at 
present constituted stands condemned, for in times of peace it has 
proved itself a monument of inefficiency, and in times of crisis it has 
agreed that its best service is to efface itself. 



PARLIAMENT 217 

influence of some unseen gods who loom above their 
heads. All that is meant by class-consciousness, 
prerogatives, traditions, superstitions, and, above 
all, that sacred radiation of power — court influence — 
is ever beating, as with subtle but remorseless little 
hammer-taps, upon their brains. 

Let us return to our wretched little despot — even 
as Emperor, be it remembered, he printed on the 
obverse of his coins, Republique Francaise. He 
electrified his army, not only by the eclat of his 
victories, but by this phrase of more thrilling import : 
Every soldier in my army carries the marshalFs 
baton in his knapsack. 

That was over one hundred years ago and in a God- 
forsaken country. How far have we advanced in a 
century of light ? Will anyone say that even in this 
democratic House the soldier carries the marshalFs 
baton in his knapsack ? What seems to weigh most 
in advancement on the Treasury Bench is family 
influence, territorial power, then wealth, clever sub- 
servience, and finally intellect. The complexion of 
the Government is shaded by that indefinable atmo- 
sphere, which — in spite of ourselves we must say it 
— suggests the words, parvenu. Liberal Governments 
in this country always carry the air of having risen 
to heights to which they were not born. They 
approach old abuses in a style of furtive audacity ; 
before prerogatives that flout the ark of their 
covenant they bow their heads in servitude ; and 
the glorious principles of freedom and progress that 
should vibrate through their souls like the trumpet 
of God's angel, they defend with doubts or, with 
apologies, discard. 
Thackeray^ says somewhere that genius, devotion, 



218 IRELAND: VITAL HOUE 

distinction, seem as nothing compared to calling a 
duke your cousin. And I am uttering no paradox, 
but merely saying what my term in the House of 
Commons has persuaded me, that in this great era 
of progress and reform the most potent of all public 
powers is the elusive but very real influence of the 
Upper Classes. It is felt by the Cabinet. It seems 
to have transpierced their fibres. From them it is 
diffused throughout the ranks of the Ministerial 
Liberals ; it is felt below the gangway in the aspira- 
tions of those who hope to seem ministrable or ad- 
ministrable. And so in politics all ways lead to the 
House of Lords. The few who are immune to these 
influences are the " cranks " — some of them — and 
the Ishmaels. 

On the Front Bench the great men are not more 
than a few — I use this word, not I hope from lack of 
candour, but not to discourage good-will anywhere. 
I see many clever men, especially lawyers, many 
able, astute, and dexterous men ; few intellects, 
fewer still of what the Yankees call " big men," that 
is to say men of character, not necessarily of the 
Sunday-school type, but men capable of seeing things 
in large, men capable of taking great decisions, men 
capable in fact of " swinging a big line of contracts." 
And with one or two of them the swing is capable of 
carrying them to the other side of the contract. 

I speak in no bitterness, still less in condemnation. 
But I think we should try to see men as they are, 
to sound their motives, feel the force of their aspira- 
tions, and to measure the scope of their accomplish- 
ments. 

In this way I have learned to appreciate to the full 
the seriousness, the earnestness, of many good Liberals, 



PARLIAMENT 219 

their public spirit and unwearied service, their atten- 
tion to detail ; and their judgment, their balance, 
their common sense, even their " moderation " ; 
all these qualities I have sought to behold in their 
greatness. And I have felt, afar off, as Byron felt 
when Hobhouse dosed him with Wordsworth's poetry 
to prove it better than his own. 

The vade mecum of the ambitious young politician 
would run thus : " The main thing is to get in some- 
how," as a famous admiral expressed it. For truly 
success covers many pre-electoral sins. Be clever. 
Be a lawyer. Regard politics as a game, but play it 
keenly. Make a serious study of the rules. Pay 
great attention to the forms. Saturate your soul 
with the respect of vestments and furniture. Speak 
often. Do not mind boring the House. Graces of 
style please many, but render nearly all suspicious. 
Vote regularly, vote solid. Be polite to all, not 
forgetting your opponents ; you may want them, or 
they may want you, some day. Never think deeply, 
but think actively, think in detail. Say many things 
to injure the enemy's cause, none to hurt their feel- 
ings. Follow well, but be careful not to be taken 
for a sheep. On some doubtful occasion pour in a 
broadside on your Party, riddle a Minister with 
epigrams, carefully polished. He will not like it, 
but within six months he will invite you to dinner, 
and, when you show him your calibre, will help you 
to the Front Bench at length. Here, be safe rather 
than brilliant ; avoid humour like the plague. A 
big man may permit himself a flash of wit now and 
then, only the most seasoned can dare to touch 
humour. Beside your special forte, read Blue books 
and magazines. History may help. Read also 



220 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

Dickens and Shakespeare — the public like quotations 
from Shakespeare. Avoid French and German — 
you might be Minister for Foreign Affairs without 
either — and do not ever travel much abroad. A 
man of culture might well lose his prejudices, a 
politician cannot afford not to keep them. Avoid 
responsibility ; cultivate this habit until it becomes 
like an instinct. Avoid facing any question fairly 
and squarely ; there are so many chances in politics. 
It is true that the question may grow in danger ; but 
then you may stave it off in your time ; so much 
the worse for your successor. Or you may be com- 
pelled at length to deal with it, and your own repu- 
tation will rise by the magnitude of your task. 

In all other matters do not be disturbed by the 
moralists ; few heed them ; or by the philosophers, 
they are not studied by men of the world. Cultivate 
a special code of honour, do not run counter to the 
prejudices of others; and to every sham, superstition, 
or hypocrisy you meet, doff your hat with respect. 

Your great chances will come between half-past 
ten and eleven ; the House has returned from dinner 
and is not yet preparing for sleep ; speak with argu- 
ment, if you like, but above all speak with point ; 
rake over what your opponents have said, and smite 
them with what their leaders uttered ten years 
before. Draw them to interrupt — you can always 
count on some Rupert of debate — and slay them 
according to programme. Finish with serious 
platitudes, and on your strongest note, sit down ! 

Here is our man well on his way to the House of 
Lords. It may be objected that this is not an attrac- 
tive portrait. But that is partly because it is repre- 
sented in bare outline. Cover this with flesh and 



PAKLIAMENT 221 

blood, give it spirit and vitality, invest the original 
with a title and with dignity of office, let his name 
figure in honourable fashion day by day in the news- 
papers, and let ten thousand acts helpful to his 
career attest his usefulness, and then the presentation 
might well appear that of one of the nation's legis- 
lative heroes. 

Certain it is, however, that even from a House well 
stocked with such as this, no truly great statesmanlike 
directive force could arise. Lovers of the House and 
upholders of the present system may well be content 
with this. They may say that the House should 
never take the lead in movements ; that they should 
be originated in the country, and only brought 
within the portals of the House when forced upon it 
by the pressure of some great agitation ; that then 
the House acts as a moderating and reconciling 
influence ; that in the event of measures passing 
through the House they have finally nothing left 
alive but what is, if not acceptable, at least endurable 
by all. 

That is what actually happens. The House of 
Commons is a great conservative force, if only by its 
faculty of delaying progress. But it has other retard- 
ing powers. It is a Constitutional morass into which 
the flood of a popular movement loses its impulsive 
impetus. That again might be advantageous if the 
House was really a model deliberative body ; but it 
lacks many elements in that regard. 

The threshing out of many intricate questions by 
rhetorical speeches, punctuated by partisan applause, 
seems to be the worst form of deliberation. It is 
true that we have the Committee Stage, but the con- 
duct is similar, when, as in the case of large Bills, 



. 



222 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the whole House is resolved into Committee. More- 
over, the Bill in Committee is looked upon as the 
field for Party tactics, and the members vote, often 
without having heard a word of the debate, according 
to the Party Whip. Let us consider an illustration 
that at first sight may appear far-fetched. The 
Differential Calculus has been the mother of innumer- 
able practical works, for the science of mechanics 
could have made no great progress without its aid ; 
and so finally we obtain wireless telegraphy — to 
cite but an example — as among its remote offspring. 
Or again the science of Bacteriology has not only 
transformed our conception of medicine but, in the 
direction of sanitation, has given rise to vast material 
works. 

Suppose either of these questions had been intro- 
duced into the House of Commons as a party measure 
to be deliberated before 600 members, amid perpetual 
comings and goings, interruptions, and rounds of 
applause. Imagine what play a brilliant speaker 
would make of the recondite arguments, the strange 
nomenclature, the " viewiness " of this doctrinaire 
theory — the Infinitesimal Calculus. I could imagine 
him making the House rock with laughter on 
Differential coefficients and the absurdity of asymp- 
totes. Then again in Bacteriology what abundant 
scope to shatter the Pasteur school by the sledge- 
hammer of authority — how a powerful orator would 
roll out the authoritative names of the scoffers, and 
how he would cover with ridicule the advocates of a 
theory so new, so disconcerting, so devoid of all 
precedent, so un-English ! 

What I here advance is not altogether fanciful, for 
Lord Brougham, by virtue of the influence his political 



PARLIAMENT 223 

authority had given him, laughed out of court the 
undulatory theory of light as expounded by Young, 
and inflicted material injustice upon that noble man ; 
and later a whole generation of ecclesiastics attempted 
to drive Darwin out of the field. 

But there are many subjects presented to our 
attention of which the full investigation is as complex, 
and the incidence of any measures as various and as 
intricate, as those of the scientific theories indicated 
as illustrations. I need only refer, and but for a 
moment, to the question of Tariff Reform in con- 
nection with which much instructive material has 
been gathered, and, on one side or the other, not a 
httle puerile argument offered. No — Parliament as 
a debating institution is ridiculous. It is no argu- 
ment to say that it is the best that has been found, 
for popular representation is a recent development, 
and the Parliaments of the world have copied that 
of England, and without much discrimination. In 
France, however, the system has been improved in 
certain features, particularly by the establishment 
of Committees and Commissions, not for discussing 
projects in the style of a debating assembly, but for 
submitting them to study. There is a great differ- 
ence. The French people have also been able to 
dispose of their business without resorting to all- 
night sittings which are our bane and our glory. 
There are times of great stress, as for instance, on 
the eve of war, when an extra strain is inevitable, 
though even then I doubt if anything is gained by 
these hysteric practices. 

But in the piping times of peace, in normal months 
of happiness, or the possibilities of such, I have 
wandered through the lobbies at two in the morning, 



224 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

or later, and still more exasperated by this folly, I 
have gazed upon my fellow members in inquiring 
sympathy, and seen them looking like somnambulists, 
and heard them talk like men hypnotised, and I felt 
that they were indeed being hypnotised, waylaid, 
and seized by all the ghosts of the lobbies, ghosts 
of the ridiculous precedents, traditions, superstitions, 
that haunt the place. And on one occasion I was 
constrained to say to a typical, stolid, John Bullish 
member : " No people in the world can beat the 
British for common sense. If we never performed 
these tricks, and the French did often, they would 
be laughed out of Europe/' A Cabinet Minister, 
however, muttered confidentially : " It's all right. 
We have big things coming." 

In that hope I resumed my pilgrimage ; and in 
that hope my pilgrimage continues. Walking through 
a lobby may not seem the best way, especially when, 
in the Committee Stage, we may have twenty 
divisions following each other so rapidly that nothing 
serious can be done in the intervals, and we thus 
spend hours in walking, treading down obstructions 
in the form of amendments proposed. 

Yet it is in these little adventurous happenings 
that a veritable strength is added to Parliament. 
Rubbing shoulders in the Lobby members get to 
know each other. At times while sitting on the 
benches in the lobbies they exchange confidences. 
There are moments which are propitious for heart 
openings. Such are found, for instance, in that in- 
tellectual calm when leaning over the taffrail in the 
doldrums, and such too in that mental debility in 
the vacuous hours after midnight. The conventional 
barriers break down, and the wandering spirit seeks 



PAKLIAMENT 225 

a resting-place. So it is that members have told me 
of gossip, anxieties, matters that have lain close to 
their souls, financial troubles, paternal hopes, diffi- 
culties at golf, marital problems, the temptation of 
honours, the doubts of a future state. 

And all this while, as my Napoleonic friend assured 
me, we were on the eve of big things, and the while 
we voted, we knew not what, like men in a dream. 
For above all we are a practical people. 

I have tried not to be led away by partiality for 
this Institution which we all admire, this collection 
of admirable men, this giant Mill of Gossip, this Sink- 
ing Fund of common sense, this Break Water of 
popular passions, this Eepository of traditions which 
parade now like opera boufte ghosts. 

If I were asked, did I think the setting up of such 
an Institution in Dublin to be the consummation of 
Ireland's endeavours, I would say, No. We have 
been deluded to some extent by the vision of 
" Grattan's " Parliament, that imperfect invention 
which closed its career in obluquy. Still less am I 
enamoured of the Senate, that pinch-beck imitation 
of the House of Lords. 

It has not even the support of the famous argu- 
ment of " growth," that word that comes so freely 
to the relief of argument when the House of Lords 
is discussed, as though indeed, with the green bay 
tree still flourishing, we are to believe that nothing 
noxious ever grew, and that nothing superfluous 
can be kept alive. 

When the Parliament Act was under debate I 
could not for the life of me understand how an in- 
stitution could be vital to the state for three sessions, 
and become useless for four ; how it was essential 
15 



226 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

that it should pronounce on our Bills, but that when 
it pronounced with reiteration, its verdict should be 
disregarded. The House of Lords either has or has not 
a mandate, or a legitimate prerogative entitling it to 
revise our legislation. If it has, then the mere fact 
of consistent exercise should not cause its forfeiture. 
If it has not, then its supervision, or its veto, should 
be abolished. 

This is doctrinaire, not in the spirit of politics. It 
is sometimes offensive in politics to say that two and 
two make four. At any rate the effect of the Parlia- 
ment Act has been that it kept the Home Rule Bill 
in being — and incidentally the Government in Office 
— for years ; we find now that nothing definitely 
conclusive has been done ; that the Bill so carefully 
drafted by the Government, so valorously cham- 
pioned, so terribly tried in the ordeal of public 
opinion, must be vitally changed. The fact is that 
the Parliament Act was steeped in low motives, if 
not dishonest intent. The House of Lords should 
either have been left to the enjoyment of its preroga- 
tives, if they were lawful ; or if, I take it, they were 
a usurpation, the whole edifice of their power should 
have been razed to the ground. But all the chicanery 
of politics intervened, and we had this Revolutionary 
Government stemming the tide of democracy, search- 
ing for precedents, and filling our souls with flatulence 
in vacuous pleas of Constitutional law. 

In Parliament things are not what they seem ; 
nothing is more misleading here than to take matters 
at their face value. It requires a little deeper 
psychology to pierce down to the real motive force, 
to find the mechanism that convinces by its real 
strength and cogency. Let us take one example. 



PARLIAMENT 227 

The gun-running exploit electrified us all. It was 
serious politically, but there was also a strong flavour 
of Irish resource and dash that almost made a 
Home Ruler applaud. The Government had had 
ample warning. The precautionary measures would 
have been simple. Our rulers did at one time show a 
tendency to adopt them, but, alarmed at the outcry 
of their opponents, they came down to the House 
explaining in elaborate apologetics. The House was 
still unconvinced until the Fanny had landed her 
rifles. I remember the attitude of the Prime Minister 
when he came forward to the table to vindicate the 
outraged majesty of the law. He looked like an 
outraged majesty himself. He spoke like a Roman 
Senator of the austere Republican days. In words, 
not many, but clear-cut, wrought of granite mould, 
he pledged himself to punish this crime. 

To the Nationalists especially those words must 
have come home with peculiar force. Mr. Asquith 
in the past had again and again shown himself a 
man of iron in regard to Irishmen imprisoned for 
participating in movements of physical force. Yet 
as I listened to these words I remembered his atti- 
tude of old without ill-will. Here at last we had a 
touch of that austere Roman virtue of a Plutarch's 
man, here was one in whom the feeling for justice has 
become a passion, a passion none the less profound 
because expressed in tempered tones. And there 
arose in my mind a conception of the stern majesty 
of the law, that thick-walled buttress of the nation, 
that palladium of a people, the greatest of all posses- 
sions. And I thought that the national respect, the 
inherent confidence in the law of England, redounded 
to the honour of the English name. 



228 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

Here was a case, moreover, in which the culprits 
were no friendless Irishmen, mere enthusiasts or what 
not of riff -raff, but guardians of the law, Privy Coun- 
cillors, associates even of those who wear the Garter 
itself ! So much the greater glory to the man whose 
acts would maintain the proud boast of England 
that there is one law only, one law for poor and rich 
alike. Not the Garter itself is a buckler against its 
dread, unerring justice. Mr. Asquith indeed stood 
high ; I beheld a vision of enlightened powers, that 
made Brutus a twilight saint, a massive strength that 
dwarfed the form of Calo himself. Happy England, 
art thou free and grand. 

Let me enjoy this for a moment. There is no 
reader so cold as to deny me that high pleasure. For 
again and again, stricken by some incongruity of the 
British Constitution, my Australian irreverence or 
Irish levity has carried me away, and yet, with what 
pathetic effort I have returned, determined to re- 
spect, to admire, to rise on stepping-stones to the 
contemplation of virtues higher than my race, higher 
than my destiny, higher than my hope. And there 
— at last I beheld the realisation there embodied, 
there in that figure of oak, that face of bronze, that 
soul of granite strength 

Here I must pause ! A musing mood has fallen 
on me, and athwart my moral sense come those lines 
of a young poet : 

To bear all naked truths 

And to envisage circumstance, all calm, 
That is the top of sovereignty. 

These are lines of Keats, who afterwards wrote : I 
have no defth to strike in. And in my mind has 



PAELIAMENT 229 

become associated these two passages, the divine 
spirit of truth ; the fate of its inspired interpreter. 
And now I return to the Prime Minister. Mr. Asquith 
did not vindicate the outraged majesty of the law. 
He let the law go hang. He thought of the ex- 
pediencies of politics ; he talked of the discretion of 
the executive. Where was the adamantine soul ? 
Washed out . . . Brutus ? Gone . . . Cato ? A dis- 
concerting crank. And to me, alas, the Sisyphean 
task of rolling up the hill my respect for great 
granitic characters. 

I have no desire to attach importance to this little 
episode, one of those innumerable little troubles of 
a Prime Minister's career, of which the successful 
negotiation earns the praise of " strategist," " ex- 
perienced leader," " great parliamentarian." There 
is a special atmosphere in the House, and there are 
special standards. 

Not long ago an intellectual Liberal speaking to 
me of a distinguished Liberal complained : " When 
Liberal ideas are advocated he seems wounded." 
That indicates a certain divergence of opinion as to 
the meaning of Liberal, and recalls an incident with 
which I will close these references. When I first 
came to London I was asked to write an article for 
a Scottish newspaper to " boom " Lord Rosebery for 
the Premiership. I had never seen Lord Rosebery, 
and what I knew of him had not made me an en- 
thusiastic partisan of his claims. I had also resolved 
that I would never write anything for the Press which 
I did not believe. I solved the difficulty by calling 
to my aid a spirit. 

I brought together all the facts that seemed to me 
to militate against the candidature of the noble Lord, 



230 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

and I insisted on these with unction — his title, his 
pride in his title, as lifting him far beyond the com- 
mon herd of Liberal politicians, his wealth, and the 
fact that he had not earned it, his respect for tradi- 
tions, forms, and prerogatives, his dislike of far- 
reaching reforms, his Conservative instincts, the 
assurance that in his hands the great buttress of 
Things as They Are would never be touched. I en- 
joyed the tingling irony which ran through the screed, 
although I expected that I would be dismissed for 
producing the copy. But no. It duly appeared in 
the paper, and I was subsequently informed that it 
was highly appreciated by Lord Rosebery's friends, 
and that it had helped his position in Scotland. It 
may be news to him to know who it was that cham- 
pioned his cause. Since then I have had the pleasure 
of hearing him, and, not feeling the strain of the 
argument excessive, I yielded myself to the enjoy- 
ment of his art. Here was the best voice I had heard 
in public — the clear-cut syllables infused with just 
enough of the old Doric accent to give fulness and 
warmth to the rounded periods ; the points, made 
like an actor, but with the avoidance of the actor's 
over-emphasis and pose ; a sufficiency of argumenta- 
tion — as much as the Gilded Chamber allows ; the 
bubbling of humour, and the sparkle of wit, yet, 
withal, never once the broad and generous spirit of 
liberal thoughts. 

Not many Liberals — and I speak of them because 
they ought to be the leaders of progress — few of 
them seem to raise their eyes above the party 
game, the chicane, and the strife. Fewer still have 
the style of great pioneers stepping resolutely 
forward, seeing ahead, winning their way to a new 



PARLIAMENT 231 

land of promise, and determinedly beating down the 
obstacles that lie in their path. There are some ; 
all honour to them. But perhaps fewer still realise 
that although no blood be spilt — heaven forbid — we 
are veritably on the brink of a Revolution, that we 
are at the dawning of a day that will mark a passing 
from the old order to the New, that Home Rule, and 
Welsh Disestablishment, gigantic as these belated 
mastodons loom in our Parliamentary Museum, are 
not the whole of public life, but are being carried 
along on the waves of some vast progressive change 
that will test to their foundations even the venerated 
buttresses of the famous Constitution itself, that will 
fling much of its wreckage on the shores of the past, 
and will bear on to a future full of its own problems, 
beset by its own difficulties and complexities, but 
irradiated by the light of freedom and alive with the 
spirit of hope. 



CHAPTEK IX 

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 1 

I asked an Irishman, who had considerable experi- 
ence in public life, whether any faculty had been 
granted by Nature to Belfast men which rendered 
them more apt than Southerners to excel in business. 
On reflection, he said, nothing in Nature, but habits 
of business have given them a greater respect for 
punctuality. This was already much, but punctu- 
ality is less an inheritance than an acquired faculty. 
If this were all that stood in the way of the progress 
of the South, then we might well hope for the future. 
The reply caused me to look more closely into the 
origin of the rapid rise and of the continued prosperity 
of Belfast. The problem that was of real interest 
to me might be stated thus : Is the commercial 
greatness of Belfast due to circumstances or qualities 
that cannot be reproduced in the South and West ? 
Or, if that be not the case, what are the conditions 
necessary to insure that the South and West may also 
launch forth into successful business enterprises ? 
Certainly I have never had much faith in that crude 
sort of sociology which labels certain countries or 
even races with fixed qualities, as if these were 
eternal laws, and says, for instance, the Ulster men 
are great, noble, energetic, far-sighted, highly intelli- 
gent honest men, but the Southerners are idle, lazy, 
thriftless, foolish, gullible, and stupid people. 

1 In reference to this chapter the maps and appendix at the end 
exhibit many details. 

232 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 233 

The same man may at one period of his career be 
full of energy and hope, and ability, and at another 
— and the change may be brought about by circum- 
stances beyond his control — apathetic, listless, in- 
capable. And conditions either of stimulation or of 
depression may be broad and far-reaching enough 
to affect a whole community. This leads to the ex- 
pected discovery that the Ulster people were more 
free than the rest of Ireland from the harassing con- 
ditions of short leases, liability to disturbance, and 
consequent rack-rents. The Ulster leases, many of 
999 years, have been long in practice. The Ulster 
custom gave security of tenure to the man on the 
land. Here already we meet with a factor of great 
importance in regard both to the character of the 
people and to the stability of business. 

Students of political history know that in the 
eighteenth century the reputation of the Scottish 
working classes, notably in the Highlands, was that 
of an idle and feckless people — reputation, that is 
to say, among their enemies or those devoid of 
sympathy with their aspirations. An Act of Parlia- 
ment called the Montgomery Act changed all that, 
and the main feature of the Montgomery Act was 
simply that it secured fairly long leases and offered 
inducements to the tenant to improve his holding. 1 

In Ireland tenant farmers also were reproached 
with being lazy, reckless, and improvident. But 
many a man still living can tell of the danger to the 
tenant of showing any signs of thrift or prosperity, 
how when the agent was about the flitch of bacon 
must be hidden, lest that evidence of comfort might 
induce him to raise the rent. In these circumstances 

1 The Montgomery Act : 10 Geo. III. c. 51. 



234 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the poor man could hardly be expected to " take 
pride " in the appearance of his dwelling house. 
Human nature remains enduring and slow to change 
in essentials, but it is plastic in regard to manifesta- 
tions which being superficial appear unduly important. 
No Acts of Parliament such as the Montgomery Act, 
or the various Land Acts passed during Parnell's 
time, have changed the character of the people, but 
they have changed the opportunities of development 
of that character. Hence with the disappearance of 
the hectoring agent and the dread of the rent-warner, 
the agricultural people of Ireland are beginning to 
show that they will remain second to none in in- 
dustry and thrift. 

The rise and fall of cities, as of empires, depend 
on a complex of causes. In Belfast another influence 
springing, however, from the same root was power- 
ful in effect. The trade of Belfast was directly 
favoured, and that of competing centres in other 
parts of Ireland deliberately handicapped, or crushed 
out altogether by laws expressly passed for that 
purpose. The successful establishment of the linen 
industry was also favoured by a circumstance which 
has only an indirect connection with the character 
of the Ulster men. The climate of Belfast is un- 
pleasant, but it renders the atmosphere, owing to 
the excess of ozone, favourable to the bleaching of 
cloth, and that circumstance was availed of in the 
critical early days. Still another cause, not at all 
under the control of the Northerners, gave a great 
stimulus to Belfast trade, and that was the deficiency 
of cotton materials in the Southern States of America 
during the great Civil War. Add to these causes the 
important condition that, with occasional outbreaks 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 235 

or menaces of disorder, the Ulster population has 
been at peace with the Government of England, and 
that the leaders of industry have been supporters of 
the dominating parties in British politics, and it will 
be seen that the development of trade in Belfast has 
taken place under fostering conditions denied to the 
other parts of Ireland. Up to a certain limit, trade 
aids trade, and the foundation of certain great in- 
dustries favours others. 

These last arguments may possibly be used in the 
form of reproach to the other provinces of Ireland. 
And that reproach would be justified if trade were 
the be-all and the end-all of life, and the sole stan- 
dard of greatness. It is not merely that a condition 
of strife and agitation is unfavourable to commerce 
in general, but it is also indirectly harmful in that it 
diverts the activities, the intelligence, the ambition, 
and the will-power of the young men of the com- 
munity into non-productive channels. Only one 
great object could justify such expenditure of the life 
energies of the people, and that is a great national ideal 
which points the way to eventual unity and progress. 

Yet I have a confident hope that after the estab- 
lishment of Home Rule there will be a new birth of 
industry and commercial enterprise in the South and 
West. Whenever a nation has long struggled for 
some gain of political freedom, and that boon has at 
length been won, the change is found not in the 
political situation only but in an outburst of energy 
that vitalises every form of national life. So it will 
be with Ireland. 

Such a forecast is not offered on supposition only. 
It is based on certain facts which will be recognised 
as valid by all having some acquaintance with indus- 



236 IKELAND : VITAL HOUE 

tries in Ireland. The first of them is that the actual 
resources of the country have hitherto been but 
inadequately exploited. Also the markets are large 
enough for the utmost supply. The number of pro- 
fitable enterprises and flourishing trades set on foot 
in Ireland within recent times is greater, and the turn- 
over in money far more important, than most persons 
interested in politics imagine. 1 

Moreover nearly all these industries, now working 
with hopeful prospects, are capable of great expansion. 
This indicates the true principle of development of 
the industrial resources of Ireland. That is to say, 
instead of endeavouring to found new ventures, 
unless in exceptional circumstances, the most ex- 
perienced observers in Ireland are of opinion that 
every encouragement should be given to such 
industries as have been already established, and 
which, by showing some profit in the course of their 
working, prove that they are adapted to the conditions 
of the country. 

Eesuming the question of the causes favourable to 
Irish trade, I declare, though this proposition will 

1 An examination of a volume entitled " List of Irish Exporting 
Manufacturers," compiled and issued by the Department of Agricul- 
ture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, shows over four hundred 
manufactures in hopeful condition in the country. The total value 
of manufactured goods was in 1905 above seventeen millions sterling, 
and in four years it had increased by nearly five millions. The total 
of Irish exports of all kinds was in 1905 nearly fifty- two millions 
sterling, and, with various fluctuations, has increased, according to the 
statistics issued by the Department, by more than two millions a year. 

This discussion of Irish industries therefore must necessarily omit 
reference to many important forms of manufacture and trade. It is 
intended simply to direct public attention to the fact that Ireland 
has vast resources, not yet efficiently developed, and that public 
opinion, education, the intervention of the State, directly and in- 
directly, counts for much in that development. 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 237 

be less acceptable to many, that the Irish people, 
not only in the North, but also in the South and West, 
have a remarkable aptitude for business. Of course 
it is easy to repeat the old sayings, and to cite Irish 
authors in support of the legend of their laziness, and 
shiftlessness, but such considerations must not be 
pressed unfairly. Any people, the most industrious 
in the world, would become disinclined to work if 
they had no security that they, or those dependent 
on them, could ever enjoy the fruits of their labour, 
or the profit of their enterprise. It is unnecessary 
now to revert to the harrowing tale of the deliberate 
efforts in the past of the legislature of England to 
embarrass or kill competing Irish trades. When these 
formal restrictions were removed various other causes, 
mostly political, combined to prevent a sense of 
security entering into the community. Gradually, 
however, as the result of great courage and great 
perseverance, various industries have become estab- 
lished, some indeed with English capital, but some 
of the most important as pure Irish ventures ; and it 
has been proved that the development of one trade 
helps the establishment of another by introducing 
all those qualities and habits which may be summed 
up under the title of businesslike methods. 

Irishmen everywhere make excellent managers and 
organisers, for in their dealings with employees they 
infuse a little more than usual of helpful human nature. 
Not only that, but put an Irishman in charge of a 
business that promises great things but which requires 
constant care and watchfulness at the beginning — I 
have seen such a man devote himself to his work with 
a veritable affection of the mind, nursing the enter- 
prise, tending it, watching its progress with parental 



238 IEELAND : VITAL HOUR 

solicitude, and taking the greatest pride in its growth. 
Such men, valuable in any community, are to be 
found in all nations ; but, as the Irish are at present 
backward in industry, there is need to recall the fact 
that there will be no dearth of captains of industry 
in Ireland when the occasion demands their services. 
It is true that I have often seen Scotsmen managing 
businesses in Ireland, while the poor Irishmen were 
the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. But 
that is generally where the enterprise is in the first 
years of its life ; all that is implied is that the respec- 
tive Scotsmen have had the opportunity, hitherto 
denied to the Irish, of learning the trade. But even 
when the Irish are only the employees it will be found 
that in matters where neat and deft handiwork is 
required they show remarkable skill. I believe one 
could refer to such firms as Kynochs at Arklow for 
verification of this statement. 1 The most flourishing 

1 Examples of Irish skilled work have increased in number of late 
years. Donegal and Kerry homespun and handmade lace and crochet 
are known all over the world, and amongst the more recent products 
may be mentioned the Donegal and Kildare carpets, and similar 
goods manufactured by the Dun Emir Guild of Dundrum, Dublin. 
Irish skill is sometimes accused of being more showy than genuine, 
but all the products of the new movement, while pleasing to the eye, 
prove good sound workmanship. 

An English firm of glove-makers, one of the largest in the world, 
established a branch in Tipperary ; and after some experience the 
firm received a report, from which the following is extracted : 

We think such difference that can be detected between Irish 
and English workers lies principally in the direction of the Irish 
girl being somewhat quicker but not so reliable as the correspond- 
ing class in England. On the whole, we are decidedly well satisfied 
with our trial of Irish women's labour, so far as it has gone. 

The Royal Commission on Technical Instruction (Second Report, 
vol. i. p. 530) speaks of the great manual dexterity and aptitude of 
the young people. 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 239 

industry in Dublin is that of Guinness, the famous 
brewers. There is something in this that reminds 
one of the saying of the Duke of Wellington that Irish- 
men fought best in the wine-countries. But of 
course it is not implied that the prosperity of the firm 
depends on the excessive drinking habits of the Irish. 
On the contrary, what with the growing temperance 
of the people, and the increased burdens of taxation, 
several breweries and distilleries have ceased to exist 
in Ireland, but barley growing has found encouraging 
outlets for other purposes. 

The great staple of the country is, however, deter- 
mined by its physical conditions. The Emerald Isle 
has always been famous for agriculture, and of late 
years great strides have been taken in opening up 
markets. Ireland is next to Denmark in the butter 
markets of Great Britain, and next to Russia in the 
supply of eggs. The Danes owe their superiority to 
their system of co-operation which has long been 
cultivated amongst them. As a sequence to this they 
practise winter dairying, and on that account they 
are able to hold their markets and their contracts 
throughout the year, whereas the Irish farmers must 
re-enter the market afresh every spring. 1 It is 
certain that Irish produce is not inferior to that of 
foreign rivals, and a fortune lies within reach of the 

1 Winter dairying is being practised now in some localities in Ire- 
land, as, for example, at Thurles, in Tipperary. 

The Department of Agriculture has made experiments in winter 
dairying at Drumholm creamery, and the results have so far been 
satisfactory. In regard to cow-testing the Department has employed 
the services of the special instructors to explain to farmers the objects 
and advantages of cow-testing. Cow-testing associations have been 
formed in various counties. There are already nearly seventy and 
their number tends to increase. 



240 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

man who will systematise and work under the best 
conditions any one of these industries, as, for example, 
the egg trade. 1 

The live-stock trade in Ireland has grown to vast 
proportions and has enriched many. But viewed from 
the national standpoint it is far from certain that the 
whole of the resources are made use of to the best 
advantage. If instead of sending live cattle it became 
general to send meat to England it would seem that 
the whole nation must benefit. 2 Such attempts as 
have been made in the South East of Ireland have 
been successful in regard to the trade itself ; but if 
with increasing development tanning industries, and 
subsequently, with the abundant supply of cheap 
leather, bootmaking and harness-making industries 
became established, then with the resources already 
at command it is certain that the country could 
maintain a greatly increased population. 

It would require a volume to set forth, even in 
moderate detail, the character of industries which 
are possible in Ireland ; or which, already established 
on a small scale, are capable of much greater exten- 
sion. The climate and soil of Ireland are in parts 
favourable to the growing of fruit, for in Armagh, 

1 The egg industry is becoming better systematised. At Dervock in 
Ulster a co-operative eggery is in good working order. The eggs are 
graded, carefully packed, and sent to a wholesale society in Dublin. 
Instructions in regard to the best system have been given by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture at various other centres with satisfactory results. 

2 Opinions of experts on this matter differ widely. Mr. William 
Field, M.P., in a note inserted in the Report of the Recess Committee 
on the establishment of a Department of Agriculture and Industries 
for Ireland, declared against a " dead meat " trade. There are, how- 
ever, abattoirs at present at Wexford and in Drogheda, and the De- 
partment of Agriculture has helped these enterprises, particularly by 
expert instruction. 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 241 

which is not the county the best situated by nature, 
fruit growing has been made successful, and trades 
which depend on fruit, such as the jam making of 
Belfast, have attained considerable development. 1 
Brave attempts have been made to deal with more 
sensitive products, and Lord Dunraven and Colonel 
Sir Nugent Everard have found their patient efforts 
rewarded with fame and profit. 

The name of Ireland has not hitherto been much 
associated with bees, but bees live and flourish in 
many parts of the country, notably in the South West, 
and year by year, as anyone may verify who will study 
the Blue books, the supply of honey is steadily in- 
creasing. The export trade already amounts to a 
value of about one-third of a million sterling. Here 
again is an industry which will certainly become 
developed in the future, for its progress has been 
delayed by various obstacles certainly not insuper- 
able, as, for instance, that of defective modes of 
marketing. 2 In quality at least Irish honey is capable 
of holding its own with the best. 

1 The Department of Agriculture carried out a series of experiments 
in establishing fruit plots in various places in Ireland. It was de- 
cided, however, that the best plan was to encourage the planting of 
fruit trees, especially apples, and to grant loans on easy terms to 
associations undertaking this work. 

2 It is difficult to obtain accurate data with regard to the bee-farm- 
ing in Ireland. According to the latest statistics I have seen (a 
Parliamentary return of 1913) there have been fluctuations in the 
trade ; but the average production for the last ten years has been 
nearly half a million pounds weight. Ulster with nearly 150,000 lbs. 
shows a slight lead over Leinster, which in turn is superior in weight 
and product to Munster. Connaught which is far behind accounts 
for over 60,000 lbs. 

Three-fourths of all the honey is produced in hives possessing 
movable combs. Nearly three-fourths is section honey, and this 
shows a tendency to prevail more and more over run honey. 

16 



242 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

It is a somewhat disconcerting fact that in this 
agricultural land it is very difficult, and in most parts 
of the country impossible, to obtain native cheese. 1 
But Ireland is full of apparent paradoxes, though, no 
doubt, a sound reason may be found for their exis- 
tence by those who patiently seek for it. There is 
very little demand for cheese in the country districts, 
and though it would seem obvious that the necessities 
of the larger towns would keep in prosperity a 
cheese factory well established, yet those who have 
attempted to solve the problem practically have 
hitherto been unable to point to satisfactory results. 

In taking a survey of Irish industries 2 over a 
number of years it will be noted that there has been 
a steady rise in most cases, and that many of the 
obstacles and defects that still remain to hamper 
development are remedial. 

In 1837, when Queen Victoria began her reign, the 
distribution of industries was more even throughout 
the country than at present. Since that date the 
western counties have suffered relatively, while the 
North, North East, East, and South have made great 
progress. The defects of transport from the Western 
as compared with the Eastern coast account in part 
for the changes that have taken place. Nevertheless, 
Limerick, Galway, Clare, and Kerry possess industries 

1 Cheese is being produced successfully in Cork and in Kerry, and 
a few other places. The Department of Agriculture carried through 
experiments in the production of Caerphilly cheese at the Knocka- 
vardagh Co-operative Creamery in Tipperary and at the Shandon 
Dairy in Waterford. The results were encouraging. Comparative 
tests with Derby and Cheddar cheeses will be made. Cheese makers 
are being especially trained. 

2 I am indebted for many of these particulars to a paper read by 
Mr. W. T. Macartney Filgate at the Congress of the Irish Technical 
Instruction Association held in May 1914 at Killarney. 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 243 

which were either not in existence in 1837 or which 
have been developed since to greater proportions. 
Since 1900 thirty-eight undertakings have ceased to 
exist and over a hundred new ones have come into 
existence. Five of those which have failed were 
brewing or distilling concerns, but fifteen belong to 
the woollen industry. 

It would be instructive to search for the causes of 
the decline of such trades. Certainly there is no lack 
of opening for woollen mills, for whereas the export 
of wools has now reached the annual value of over 
three-quarters of a million sterling, yet Ireland 
imports woollen goods to the value of over a million. 
The woollen mills which show a prosperous trade are 
dotted all over the country from Blarney to Lucan, 
from Kilkenny to Athlone and Galway ; and their rise 
seems often due to some local circumstance, such as 
available motor power, or to the business-like qualities 
and determination of a few citizens. Here, for 
instance, is an encouraging story of successful enter- 
prise. Dripsey in 1902 possessed an old mill which 
was formerly unconnected with the woollen trade. In 
1903 Mr. O'Shaughnessy, who had been trained to the 
business in America, started manufacturing woollen 
goods with eighteen hands and four slow looms. In 
ten years his staff had become quadrupled and the 
size of the mill had become doubled. It is now 
equipped with a modern fast-running plant, water 
power has been replaced by gas engines, the whole 
establishment is lit with electricity, the workers are 
housed in comfortable cottages, the goods go to all 
parts of the world, and are known by the title " Kath- 
leen Ni Houlahan." A second factory has been 
started at Sallybrook near Cork, and the trade seems 



244 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

likely to develop. Most mills in this industry are 
to be found in Munster, Leinster, and Connaught ; 
though, in Ulster, Antrim, Donegal, Fermanagh, and 
Tyrone, possess important factories. 

The advantage of following up a line which has 
already led to a prosperous business is illustrated by 
many enterprises in Ireland. The linen trade which 
sprang from small beginnings has now increased to 
such an extent that Belfast can boast of the greatest 
linen factory in the world, the York Street Flax Spin- 
ning Company, which employs 4,500 hands. Other 
large companies operate in various parts of Ulster ; 
but taking in the whole of Ireland, and including 
therefore Balbriggan, Dublin, and Cork, there are 
230 mills and factories occupied in spinning, weav- 
ing, bleaching, and finishing. The output has become 
so great that it is necessary to import flax from 
Belgium, Holland, and Russia, the home-grown crop 
falling far short of the requirements. Here perhaps 
may be found an indication for enterprise, for flax 
was formerly grown in large quantities in all the four 
provinces of Ireland. 

This trade also illustrates the manner in which 
one industry gives rise to another, for on account 
of the convenient supply of linen, Londonderry has 
become the great centre for the production of shirts, 
collars, and cuffs, and thirty factories are in existence 
in the neighbourhood. A large rural area is linked 
to the city by means of homework. Thousands of 
hands — some authorities say 50,000 — are connected 
with the trade in Londonderry, Donegal, and Tyrone, 
the majority being outworkers. Most of the hands 
are women and girls, and it frequently happens that 
there is no corresponding portion of work for the 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 245 

man. At Londonderry a shipbuilding yard has been 
re-opened, and employment has there been found 
for thousands of men and boys. Such a circle of 
trades and of employments certainly forms a well- 
knit social community. 

The war and the suggestion of " capturing German 
trade " has turned the attention of commercial men 
to Ireland in this regard. Amongst trades which 
could be established have been mentioned : buttons 
and studs, combs, brushes, gloves, toys, fancy goods 
in leather, artificial flowers, tapes, ribbons, braids, 
food products derived from milk. 

The arguments point to the cheap and abundant 
labour available, the adaptability of the labour, the 
easy terms on which factory sites can be obtained, 
and various other factors which help to ensure 
success. 

The question may be asked as to what advantage 
can arise from the discussion of trade prospects. By 
many practical men it is felt that success in trade 
depends on a complex of details, the importance of 
which can only be discovered in the actual working 
of the business itself. There is much reason in such 
a view of the matter, but the argument is far from 
representing all the elements in the question, even 
those which are entirely practical. Many of the 
factors which influence trade for good or bad are 
independent of the actual resources of the country, 
and are to some extent within the control of the 
people, and are influenced even by political con- 
siderations. The most glaring examples of such 
influence have been encountered already in Irish 
history, in those cases where the English Govern- 
ment passed laws levelled directly against Irish 



246 IRELAND : VITAL HOUE 

trade. But in a hundred ways, more devious and 
more subtle in movement, political considerations 
may affect trade. Yet these striking instances are, 
on the whole, less important than the daily influence 
of such a subtle essence as education, that is to say, 
when education is properly understood as the train- 
ing that fits a people for the battle of life. 

Remotely the butter trade of Ireland has been 
affected by the ambitions of Bismarck. His doctrine 
of Pan-Germanism eventually caused a war of aggres- 
sion on Denmark, which resulted in the loss to that 
nation of part of her territory. The Danes were left 
with a legacy of poverty and crippled resources, but 
with great assets in the forms of intelligence, energy, 
and the capacity for co-operation. The story of the 
commercial rise of Denmark is full of interest to 
Ireland ; we should talk less of the Hungarian policy 
and more of the Danish, especially as the rivalry of 
the Danes is brought home year by year in the loss 
of lucrative markets. The Irish butter trade in 
Great Britain was, in 1912, worth over £4,000,000, 
but these figures were surpassed by the Danes. 
What is evidently required is that the methods 
of the Danes should be studied, and the lesson 
inculcated into the minds of the Irish farmers. 

That work has already been undertaken by the 
Department of Agriculture, so that here we meet with 
a decisive example of the influence on trade that 
may be due to political action, and hence to public 
opinion, and to education. The Department sends 
out a number of instructors (eight at the time of 
writing) to show the farmers the best means of pro- 
duction and marketing ; the work of these instructors 
is supplemented by thirty-three other instructors 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 247 

employed by local authorities in order to improve the 
methods of butter-making for the consumption at 
home. In Denmark a system of cow-testing is in 
use by which the value of the produce of each cow is 
estimated in relation to the cost of maintenance. 
The milk is also standardised. By working on these 
principles the Danes are able to form an accurate 
knowledge of the economies of every farm, and to 
obtain the best results with given resources. It is 
believed by experts that when the Irish farmers 
work on similar lines, the butter trade may become 
trebled, and so rise above £12,000,000 per annum. 

Then as to eggs. Columbus discovered America 
and used an egg to show how easily it was done. 
Ireland has a more cunning discovery yet to make, 
that of the egg itself. The egg will yet sing through 
Irish history like an enchanted lyre. Note that 
already Ireland supplies more than one-third of all 
the eggs imported into Great Britain, the value of 
the Irish produce being in 1912 no less than 
£2,900,000, these figures being beaten by Russia 
only, with £3,900,000. Mr. George Russell, the 
famous A.E. of Irish literary circles, who is yet 
keener on agricultural matters than the most experi- 
enced of farmers and sounder than the most bucolic, 
has touched his harp in praise of the Irish egg. Yet 
there is much to be done for the egg. The days are 
past when the thrifty housewife of the country, en- 
dowed with too much family pride to allow herself 
to send up a meagre parcel, kept the eggs until their 
numbers became respectable but their savour only 
too redolent of the days that are gone. 

That the egg trade is capable of great develop- 
ment becomes apparent from a study of its upward 



248 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

tendency within the last few years and a considera- 
tion of the vast extent of the markets available. In 
1904, Holland, for example, exported to Great 
Britain only 100,000 great hundreds (the great hun- 
dred being 120). At that time the export of Ireland 
was 5,738,000 great hundreds. In eight years Hol- 
land had increased her trade tenfold ; Ireland had 
advanced certainly, but at a much slower rate, the 
export being 6,313,000 great hundreds. The quality 
of the Irish eggs had improved and the prices paid 
had increased from 7s. 1§(#. per great hundred to 
9s. 3d. per great hundred. The total market in Great 
Britain had increased from £5,406,000 at an average 
price of 6s. 4§d per great hundred in the year 1900 
to £9,590,000 at 8s. lOJd. per great hundred. 

Here again the Department has been of assistance 
to agriculture, for it has sent out thirty-six in- 
structors to teach the farmers the best method of 
poultry-keeping. Endeavours are also in progress 
to produce the best standard eggs, and for that pur- 
pose over 6,000 dozen eggs of superior breed have 
been distributed to the farmers. The trade in poultry 
as distinct from eggs has also reached considerable 
proportions in Ireland. The poultry comes mostly 
from Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford, and Waterford, 
and Northern localities ; but in spite of the restric- 
tion of the area the trade in 1912 had reached the 
value of £1,037,000, and that was four times the 
value of that of Russia. 

The total value of all foodstuffs, including liquids, 
produced in Ireland and consumed in Great Britain 
in 1912 amounted to £30,000,000, and this is only 
equalled by the supplies from Argentina. The total 
Irish meat trade in the export of meat or live cattle 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 249 

to Great Britain is more than one-third of all that 
arrives there from abroad. Moreover since 1904, 
the first year for which statistics are available, 
this trade has steadily advanced. In 1904 the total 
value was £16,000,000, in 1913 it had amounted to 
£23,000,000. Those who have been inclined to take 
a hasty view of the importation of fermented and 
spirituous liquor in Irish economy may be reminded 
that as against these impressive figures the value of 
the total export of porter, stout, beer and whisky, 
although great, is not relatively overwhelming. In 
1912 it amounted to £2,000,000, exclusive of duty, 
and the trade in whisky showed signs of a decline. 

It may be surprising to find that potatoes, identified 
as they are with the joys and griefs of Ireland, show 
inferiority in the export trade to such prosaic 
products as lard, condensed milk, or yeast. The 
value of each of these mentioned is above £250,000 
annually. That of oats is £400,000, of fruit 
£140,000, and of fish £450,000. Fish and fruit are 
of special interest here, for the trade in these products 
is capable of considerable expansion. The export 
value of the sea fish taken off the Irish coast by 
Irish fishing-boats is over £300,000 per annum. The 
mackerel product amounts to 15,000 tons, of which 
one-third is consumed fresh in Great Britain and 
two-thirds cured, and sent in considerable quantities 
to America. Herrings amounted to 25,000 tons, of 
which one-half is cured. The kippering industry is 
at present not large, but it is steadily progressing. 
Shell fish give an annual yield of 80,000 tons, and 
Irish oysters are valued at £8,000. 

All these figures, substantial as they are, could be 
greatly increased. The Irish fishermen are admir- 



250 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

able in the handling of their small crafts, but fisher- 
men of other communities, Scottish and Norwegian, 
have been quicker to adapt themselves to scientific 
progress, and by trawling off the Irish coast they have 
hurt the chances of the native fishers. There have 
been outcries at times against what is described as un- 
fair competition, but the true solution of the difficulty 
is to put Irishmen in a position to hold their own 
against the most enterprising rivals. Some of the 
older fishermen have shown themselves reluctant to 
change, but at present a number of Irish boats up to 
forty tons are equipped with engines of the latest 
pattern — with internal combustion auxiliary engines 
— and these have done good service. 

There are many ways in which the Department and 
the Congested Districts Board have been able to help 
Irish fishery. Such a business as mackerel-curing, 
for instance, has the value of its produce greatly 
improved by the adoption of the best methods, and 
expert instructors have in these cases been of con- 
siderable service. Any one, however, who knows 
the condition of the Irish fishing industry will agree 
that the harvest of the sea offers the prospect of 
returns doubled and trebled, if Irishmen take every 
point in their favour. 

That the fruit industry in Ireland is capable of 
considerable extensions becomes apparent from the 
fact that the trade in Armagh has steadily increased. 
What has been done in the North could be repeated 
in other parts of Ireland. In the valley of the Suir 
apple-growing is carried on profitably, and the 
Blackwater cider has an excellent reputation. The 
Gormanstown district of Co. Meath has long been 
known for its raspberries and damsons. 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 251 

There are relatively few flowers in Ireland. The 
smiling beauty of an Irish day, as when the sun shines 
out after a shower, has always appealed to the spirit 
of the poets of Erin. The suggestion of a garden 
comes to the mind. But in the old rack-renting days 
the cultivation of a garden meant also the suggestion 
of comfort, and consequently the squeezing of the 
poor tenant to pay the landlord. With the settle- 
ment of the land question and with the sense of 
security that has arisen, flowers have begun to 
blossom forth, and soon these adornments of the 
cottage will delight the eye everywhere. 

But in several parts of Ireland a serious trade in 
flowers has been set on foot, and here there is plenty 
of room for hope, for the market is vast. Holland 
exports bulbs to Great Britain of the annual value 
of over £250,000, and the total exports approach 
£1,000,000. Yet Ireland is as well adapted as Holland 
to this trade. At the farm at Rush, County 
Dublin, commonly known as " Holland in Ireland " 
over a hundred hands are employed on 45 acres, and 
£2,000 are paid in wages. From this farm flowers 
have been exported all over the world, to Australia, 
New Zealand, India, Japan, and even to Holland. 
At Lissadell in County Sligo may be seen 25 acres 
of daffodils, and gardens devoted to alpine, her- 
baceous, and rock plants. Over a hundred hands 
are employed and the trade is steadily increasing. 

Of other industries in Ireland we find ship-building, 
but the celebrated firms of Harland & Wolff (with 
its " record " output for 1914) and Workman, Clark 
& Company carry on their operations on so vast a 
scale that, short of a volume of description, this 
mere reference to enterprises hardly matched in the 



252 IRELAND : VITAL HOUK 

world must suffice. The question arises as to whether 
the establishment of such mighty works is possible 
elsewhere in Ireland. Certainly nothing stands in 
the way but temporary and removable obstacles. 1 

Biscuit-making in Belfast and in Dublin has pro- 
duced a considerable industry. The exports to 
Great Britain are set down as £250,000, but this re- 
presents only a small part of the total exports. The 
firm of Messrs. Jacobs in Dublin employs 3,000 hands 
and exports to the value of £500,000 per annum. 

Amongst the progressive trades which show that 
the Irish artisan is apt in matters of handicraft are 
those of the renowned Kilkenny woodworkers, the 
glove-making in Tipperary and Cork, the tanneries 
of Limerick, Cork, and Belfast, the boot factories in- 
cidentally referred to, the pipe-making industry of 
Dublin, the pottery manufactories of Belleek, the 
glass manufactories, though it be of bottles only, in 
Dublin and in Belfast, 2 works for locomotives near 
Dublin, 3 and motor-car factories in Belfast. 

Another industry which has been profitable to 

1 The Liffey can show several important industries connected with 
shipping. One of the most promising is the Dublin Dockyard Company 
which commenced operations in 1902. They now employ over five 
hundred hands and pay up to £1,000 a week in wages. One of the 
earliest steamers built, in 1908, was the Irish fishing cruiser Helga. 
Since then two cruisers for a similar purpose have been delivered to 
Canada. 

2 The glass manufacture of Ireland, at one time highly reputed, 
was one of the industries intentionally killed by English legislation. 
Waterford glass with its peculiar tinting was once highly reputed. It 
should not be difficult to re-establish the manufacture of glass here, 
and also in Cork. A scheme is now on foot for extensive glass works 
in Ireland. 

3 The factory near Kingsbridge, Dublin, employs 1,600 hands, and 
turns out engines, carriages, and trucks for the Great Southern and 
Western Railway. 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 253 

many, but of which the great possibilities do not 
seem to have been well considered, is that of horse- 
breeding. Hitherto the main trade has been in the 
production of horses sold at a low price, and giving 
no considerable margin of profit. The great field is 
found, however, in the breeding of blood stock. The 
success of Irish racehorses has shown that the con- 
ditions of soil and climate suffice to bring out the 
qualities of breeding of the best horses. Capital is 
required to carry on this business on an extensive 
scale and in a systematic fashion ; there seems little 
room to doubt that capital, so employed, will be 
found eventually to bring in a large return. 1 

Ireland is not rich in minerals, and Lord Dufferin 
once declared that the first injustice to Ireland had 
been achieved in past geological times when she was 
deprived of coal and other mineral treasures. 2 Never- 

1 The Department of Agriculture have recently made a beginning 
in fostering horse-breeding. Its scheme was adopted by every county 
in Ireland except Meath, the council of that county desiring to have 
Clydesdale stallions contrary to the advice of the Department. 

2 Some readers may be surprised to learn on the authority of Pro- 
fessor Hull, of the Geological Survey, that there are 30,000,000 tons 
of available iron ore in Ulster ; and over 200,000,000 of workable 
coal in Ireland. 

The distribution is : 

Leinster (Castlecomer) . . 118,000,000 tons Anthracite. 

Ulster (Ballycastle, Antrim) . 12,000,000 „ Bituminous and 

Anthracite. 

,, (Tyrone) . . . 30,000,000 „ Bituminous. 

Munster (Tipperary) . . 24,000,000 „ Anthracite. 

(Clare, Limerick, Cork) . 15,000,000 „ Anthracite. 

Connaught (Arigna). . . 10,000,000 „ Semi-bituminous. 

209,000,000 tons net. 

Dean Swift was interested in the coal question, and he tried some 
experiments, using Kilkenny coal and Whitehaven alternately in his 



254 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

theless Ireland is not destitute of coal, for at present 
the annual output is 90,000 tons, valued at £50,000 
and the industry gives employment to nearly nine 
hundred hands. Anthracite is found in considerable 
quantities, and even gold is obtainable here and 
there in remunerative quantity. And yet withal, 
emigration continues at the rate of 30,000 per annum. 
Let us consider one case of failure, for even more 
clearly perhaps than in successful enterprises we see 
the possibilities for good or ill that Government and 
social conditions may exercise. Near a small village 
in County Clare called Doonagore excellent slate 
is obtained such as is useful for paving footpaths or 
nagging floors. An industry was started which gave 
employment for about three hundred men. In due 
course labour troubles arose. At one time such an 
occurrence would have been made the occasion for 
homilies on the incapacity of the Irish for regular 
and co-ordinated work, but of recent years England 
has led the van in strikes of gigantic size carried on 
in obstinate temper, and causing grave concern to the 
Government. The question of labour troubles in- 
volves a thousand factors of conditions of life, educa- 
tion, taxes, and temperament of the people, the 
degree of cohesion in organisation of the workers, 
the activities of the leaders, chance occurrences, as 
well as the state of trade, involving also foreign 
competition. Let us pass over this, after remarking 
that these labour troubles helped in part to bring the 
trade to an end. 

grate. He concluded in favour of Kilkenny, and wrote vigorously 
in favour of the local product. (See " Drapier Letters.") 

The coalfields of Ireland employ nearly 900 hands and produce 
over 90,000 tons a year. The principal workings are at Castlecomer, 
Wolfhill, Gracefield, and Arigna. 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 255 

But there were other causes. The port of ship- 
ment is Liscannor, and Liscannor bay opens out into 
the broad Atlantic. The tempests of the Atlantic 
need no exaggerated description ; they have won 
their reputation ; at Liscannor they are sometimes 
superb. At Liscannor, however, the rocky bed of 
the sea becomes shallow and crumpled enough to 
break the force of the waves, and this circumstance 
has made it possible to build a little sheltered harbour 
where a small seagoing vessel might be moored in 
safety. This possibility has not been quite fulfilled 
by the little dock-like enclosure which the Govern- 
ment actually built, for the disposition of the rocks 
and the masonry is such that in rough weather the 
water racing round the elbow of the harbour sweeps 
into its entrance with such speed and volume as 
to wash out any vessel which is not strongly secured. 
When secured the vessel pounds away up and down, 
with the great risk of bumping a hole through her 
timbers or plates. In these circumstances application 
was made to one of the Castle Boards — the Board of 
Works — which concerns itself with such matters, 
and the Board finding that it had a loose sum of 
money decided to improve the bottom of the harbour. 
The apparatus employed broke at an early stage of 
the proceedings ; then came some difficulty about 
supplying the defect, the crew and the workers 
meanwhile being paid, " for watching the ebb and 
flow of the tide," as a local authority expressed it ; 
and at length it was found that the sum of money 
available was exhausted, and nothing more was done. 
The result was the same as if the official order 
had been given : Pound away until the money is 
done, then clear out. It reminds one of the cele- 



256 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

brated plan of attack of Napoleon Bonaparte's 
commander at Toulon : " I will bombard the town 
for three days, and then carry it by the bayonet/' 
though even here we had the promise of an ultimate 
success. It might be said that the action of the 
Board was reasonable ; they worked while they had 
money, and then stopped. That is true. But an 
engineer lays his plans to accomplish a certain work, 
and not merely to exhaust a credit. In the whole 
history from first to last there is a suggestion of that 
incompetence which we meet with so often in the 
governing of Ireland, and which is the more hopeless 
because allied often with good intentions. 

My reason for dealing with the question of Irish 
trade developments was, however, to strike an en- 
couraging note with regard to the future. Irish 
vitality is wonderful. And so, I have no doubt, the 
quarries at Doonagore will soon be in full blast 
again. I know an English firm which, having ex- 
amined the whole property, decided that the under- 
taking was full of promise. They postponed the 
investment of capital in the affair on various grounds 
which, however, could all be included by saying that 
the state of the country did not yet offer all the 
security desired. 

To sum up the whole question : We find that 
Ireland is a country of great resources, 1 many of 
which are only in the infancy of their development ; 

1 Consider, for instance, the question of afforestation. In Ireland 
the bareness of the country is one of the most striking features of the 
landscape. The country is beautiful in spite of this, but wherever the 
eye rests on a clump of trees or the remains of an old forest, the natural 
charm of the landscape is greatly enhanced. This is, however, merely 
the sentimental side of the question. It is well to consider the prac- 
tical utility in detail. Holland has given the world many examples 



INDUSTEIAL DEVELOPMENT 257 

labour is abundant, and the Irish labourer is both 
hardworking and intelligent ; the handicraftsmen 

to copy in agriculture and nearly thirty years ago a Danish expert, 
Mr. D. Howitz, was sent to Ireland to study the question of afforestation. 
He submitted a report which was laid before the House of Commons, 
in which he said that the question of tree-planting was one of vast 
importance and that Ireland instead of having a population of 
5,000,000 should have 25,000,000, if this industry were determinedly 
taken up. 

Mr. Howitz estimated that there were 3,000,000 of acres in Ireland 
available for profitable tree-planting ; the profit that would accrue 
he set down at £3,000,000 a year. It should be noted that no 
less than £25,000,000 worth of timber is imported every year into 
the United Kingdom, and according to a high authority on the sub- 
ject, Dr. Nisbet, it would be possible to grow as much as £18,000,000 
worth on the soil of Great Britain and Ireland. Ireland was at one 
time well supplied with trees, as is evident from the old Irish names, 
signifying wooded places, which abound. But the trees were cut 
down for various reasons and no general order was in force for plant- 
ing. Over a hundred years ago the Dublin Society paid bounties for 
tree-planting, and this gave a new impetus to the industry. Then the 
troubles of the Union came, and the bounties were discontinued. 

The question has seriously occupied the attention both of the 
Government and of private individuals. Among those who have been 
most active in the private sphere are Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Castle- 
down, and Count Moore. Lord Castledown established a saw-mill 
near his demesne, and this gives employment to a great many in the 
neighbourhood. In Kilkenny the Hon. Otway Cuffe helped to estab- 
lish a wood factory, and the Kilkenny woodworkers are now famous 
all over Ireland. 

The Irish Forestry Society has revived interest in this subject and 
given a great stimulus to individual efforts of tree-planting. An 
" Arbor Day " has been established, and this has become popular 
throughout the length and breadth of the country. Many thousands 
of trees are planted on Arbor Day, and children in the schools are 
instructed in the value of tree-planting. The intelligent appreciation 
they display is a good augury of the future. Of the total area of 
Ireland about 1"4 per cent., or less than 300,000 acres, is under 
woods ; as compared with England 5"3 per cent., Scotland 4*5 per 
cent., and Wales 3"9 per cent., Ireland is at a great disadvantage. 
The utility of tree-planting does not rest with the profit of the timber. 
Woods on the Western border form a protection from the Atlantic 

17 



258 IBELAND : VITAL HOUR 

show patience, skill, and deftness in their work ; 
Irishmen are good organisers, keen in enterprise, and 

gales, and the value of all the land so protected is increased whether 
the land be cultivated or used for grazing. 

It is well, however, to call attention to another aspect of this matter, 
viz., that the cost of fostering this industry may be in excess of the 
return. In a recent number of the " Irish Review " Mr. Justin 
Phillips delivers, figures in hand, what without punning might be 
called a powerful philippic against the system at present adopted in 
Ireland. It will here be sufficient to quote the beginning and end of 
his article : 

In considering the various activities of our Department of 
Agriculture we cannot fail to be deeply impressed by the enormous 
amount of energy and money now being expended by that body 
on the development of afforestation. In their report, issued in 
1908, the Departmental Committee on Irish Forestry advocated 
the preservation of existing woods, and the creation of a new forest 
area as a sound investment for the nation. Also, at the request 
of the Department of Agriculture, the Development Commis- 
sioners recently sanctioned a grant of £25,000 to aid this work, 
and during the past year a Chair of Forestry in the Royal Col- 
lege of Science has been established at the expense of Develop- 
ment Funds. 

In conclusion I state emphatically that expenditure on affores- 
tation is altogether unjustifiable, because the accumulated value 
of the cost of purchasing and planting afforestable lands, when 
added to the accumulated value of the annual outgoings for 
supervision and rates, will be such that the sums received from 
the sale of timber under present conditions will barely equal a 
tithe of the accumulated sum. Afforestable lands would, if used 
for ordinary agricultural purposes, produce considerably more 
wealth than if used for forestry, and therefore afforestation must 
ultimately prove to be a most unsound investment for the nation, 
a drain on our natural resources, and an injustice, not alone to 
the Irish ratepayers, but to those landless men who would will- 
ingly put afforestable lands to a productive and profitable pur- 
pose. 
How can views, apparently so contrary, be reconciled ? Mr. Phillips, 
in taking note of the length of time which must elapse before tree- 
planting can give a return, calculates on the initial expenditure a pos- 
sible income furnished by compound interest for that time, and he 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 259 

zealous in business ; captains of industry will be 
forthcoming in proportion as trade is developed ; the 
Government can do much to aid and foster Irish 
trade, and of late years the Department of Agriculture 
and Fisheries and the Congested Districts Board have 
some excellent work to their credit ; the spirit of 
co-operation, of which Sir Horace Plunkett has been 
the pioneer, and which the Irish Agricultural Organisa- 
tion Society has greatly aided, teems with promise 
for the future ; the general spread of education, the 
enlightenment of local bodies will secure the elimina- 
tion of bad methods, and the progressive improve- 
ment will be stimulated by the solid gains that accrue ; 
the Government might still do more as, for instance, 
by a thorough geological survey with regard to mineral 
resources ; * but the great boon is yet to come when 

sets this on the other side of the balance. The question, however, 
arises as to the limits allowed to such a mode of assessment. Further 
he criticises the Department of Agriculture on the score of costly 
administration. That evil could be reduced if by intelligent under- 
standing throughout the country Irish farmers were induced to plant 
lands not otherwise so profitable. It is undoubted that a great 
amount of the country at present remains useless. Similar remarks 
apply to projects of reclamation of land, schemes of drainage. It is 
possible to squander money on these objects ; it is also possible by 
good economy to render them available for the income of the country 
to a degree greater than is generally suspected. 

In the " Nineteenth Century," September 1914, appears an instruc- 
tive article on " Afforestation and Timber Planting in Ireland," by 
Mr. J. Nisbet, Forestry Adviser to the Board of Agriculture, Scotland. 
This expert points out in what way afforestation schemes could be 
advantageously carried through in Ireland. 

1 During the year 1912-1913 the Geological Survey of Ireland con- 
tinued the mapping of areas in Ireland on the scale of six inches to 
one mile. A detailed investigation of the horizons on which coal 
occurs in the Leinster coalfield was begun. Soils were investigated in 
regard to their crop-bearing powers. This is work in the right direc- 
tion. 



260 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

with Home Rule there will be infused into the country 
a new life of hope, energy, determination, future- 
looking, and confidence ; and with that again the 
steady influx of capital. 

Many instances might be given of the successful promotion of in- 
dustries even by what some practical men might be inclined to call 
artificial means. Wurtemberg, a country one-fourth the size of 
Ireland, was in 1850, in the words of Dr. von Steinbeis, " purely 
agricultural and impoverished by over-population." Its condition 
was " deplorable." Dr. von Steinbeis set himself to solve the problem 
of introducing industries. He succeeded, and Wurtemberg is known 
all over Europe for its manufactures, which include textile fabrics, 
gunpowder and blasting powder, and Mauser rifles. It was said 
recently that a pauper could not be found in Wiirtemburg. These 
last words, however, were written before the war. 

On our side I find in the " Irish Homestead " of 13th June 1914 
an article by Mr. T. Wibberley from which I cite only this paragraph : 
Rape possesses both a higher feeding and manurial value 
than do mangels. The most up-to-date tables published on the 
matter have been recently compiled by Dr. Crowther, of the Uni- 
versity of Leeds, reference to which will show that rape contains 
digestible albuminoids 1*5 per cent., digestible fat, '6 per cent., 
carbohydrates 6 per cent., with a starch value of 8 and albuminoids 
ratio of 1 to 5 and a manurial value of 4s. 3d. per ton, whilst 
mangels contain '1 per cent, digestible albuminoids, *1 per cent, 
digestible fat, and 9 per cent, digestible carbohydrates, starch 
value 7, albuminoids ratio 1 to 92, and a manurial value of 3s. 5d. 
per ton. 
For my own encouragement I have read these words so often that 
the ideas they bring float through my mind like a Beethoven Sonata. 
There is hope for a country that can think on those lines. 

Bravo, Wibberley, c'est la vraie agriculture ! — that is the true way 
to work a farm. 



CHAPTER X 

EDUCATION 

The antique Persians taught three useful things, 
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth. 

I have begun these notes on Education by a reference 
to my old friend, Byron, and already this may seem 
to the purists too frivolous an entry. But Byron in 
his light style often, and especially in " Don Juan," 
throws a radiant beam to the depth of things ; his 
judgment there is good, his characterisations of men 
have the touch of inner verity. On the other hand 
I have known many shallow and pretentious sayings, 
many futile and false things, proclaimed with solemn 
mien and stodgy utterance. I am speaking of educa- 
tion, I am speaking even of Irish education. I want 
to clear the ground so that we may set up proper 
standards. 

In the House of Commons I have listened to an 
address on education which might have been delivered 
to a congress of carpenters, for it dealt mainly with 
the details of buildings ; I have heard another that 
was more fitted for a vestrymen's meeting, for it 
was occupied with the gossip of Anglican and Non- 
conformist interests in a little Welsh school. And 
this too at a time when the greatest need of the State 
is education, and when it requires a clear view of 
education from top to bottom and bold decisive 

261 



262 IRELAM) : VITAL HOUR 

action to stave off those symptoms of decline which 
are not absent even in this mighty nation. 

In Germany — and this is the secret of Germany's 
greatness, wherein she has been great — at the begin- 
ning of last century William von Humboldt was 
entrusted with large powers in remodelling the educa- 
tion of the country. He was a man of extended 
views, and of liberal culture, and the scheme with 
which he endowed Germany has sufficed to make the 
Fatherland pre-eminent in science and its products, 
and to hold that great asset firm in the face of diffi- 
culties of many kinds which have beset her path. 1 

At the outset, then, I will say that education in 
Ireland is bad. I judge by results. It is useless to re- 
tort with the brilliant record of Irish boys at school, 
lists of prizes, scholarships, and the like, for these 
are the very matters which I desire to put into the 
crucible. As well might you say that Chinese educa- 
tion is good, because by the prizes and preferments 
that result the young Chinese is launched into the 
path of the mandarins. What then is the test ? 
One test is the position in which, as far as education 
has effect, the nation is placed as against other nations. 
Another is in the estimation of the higher products 
of education, the distinction obtained in the arts, 
in literature, and particularly in science. 

By any of these tests the education of Ireland 
stands condemned, and it is the duty of those who 
love Ireland not to cover up the issue by a fanfar- 

1 A study of the progress of Technical Education in Germany will 
reinforce this argument enormously. An article in a recent number 
of "Nature" (12 November, 1914) reproduced the "Revue Scienti- 
fique " (21-28 November, 1914) by Sir William Ramsay, indicates 
Germany's great energy in respect to industrial developments. 



EDUCATION 263 

onade of rhetoric, but calmly to recognise the fact, 
and determinedly search for the causes of failure. 
Certainly that is not to be found either in the lack 
of desire of parents for the education of their sons, 
or in the deficiency of the children themselves. The 
struggling Irishman of less than moderate means 
seems generally keener to provide a good education 
for his children than the man in a corresponding 
situation in England. That statement, which appears 
as a result of observation, may be verified by statis- 
tics : 5 per 1,000 of the population go to higher schools 
in England, 6 per 1,000 in Ireland. It must be 
remembered that the difficulties surmounted and 
sacrifices entailed are much greater in a poor country 
like Ireland, than a country where prosperity is so 
widely spread as in England. 

I do not intend to enter into a discussion of the 
details of the Irish system, for that might run to 
volumes, but rather to point out certain broad govern- 
ing principles. The control of Irish education, as 
indeed of all forms of public activity, depends on the 
Castle System. There is a Board of National Educa- 
tion which has in charge the system of elementary 
instruction throughout the country, and there is a 
Board whose function it is to control within certain 
limits, or to guide by rewards, what is called Inter 
mediate Education, that is to say intermediate be- 
tween the elementary education and that provided at 
the Universities. These Boards are both the offspring 
of the Castle, the members being nominated by the 
Lord-Lieutenant, and hence, as in all public business 
in Ireland, we ultimately reach politics as repre- 
sented by the British Government of the day. 

For the Board of National Education there are 



264 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

twenty members, ten of them being Catholics and 
ten Protestant. In the event of equal votes on any 
subject, the decision is left to the Resident Com- 
missioner. The Resident Commissioner is Dr. W. 
J. M. Starkie, a Protestant, a representative of 
Oxford and Trinity College, a man of considerable 
academic fame and one who at the beginning of his 
career exercised almost autocratic power. I have 
heard it stated that this power was not always 
wisely exercised in regard to the fostering of Irish 
education, that Dr. Starkie gave too much impor- 
tance to certain personal notions of his own, and 
that his influence was felt too much in the way of 
criticism rather than of stimulation. It is only fair, 
however, to say that these words were uttered by 
one not in sympathy with Dr. Starkie's school of 
thought, and on the other hand Dr. Starkie in an 
address delivered in July 1911, in the Queen's Uni- 
versity, Belfast, makes out a good case for his ideas. 

However, the failings of Irish education depend 
less on Dr. Starkie than on the general system. Here 
we come to a singular result of Castle rule, for while 
English Tory politicians complain that Home Rule 
will mean Rome Rule and reproach the Irish with 
being a priest-ridden people, we find that it is the 
Castle itself which imposes the rule of the priests in 
elementary education. 

The managers of Primary schools are the parish 
priests. The managers are appointed by the Board, 
but it has become the custom to appoint them on the 
recommendation of the Bishop, and so it comes about 
that almost automatically the parish priest becomes 
the manager of the school. The manager has the 
power of dismissing a teacher subject to the endorse- 



EDUCATION 265 

ment of the Bishop. To estimate the effect of that 
authority in a country parish requires no great effort 
of imagination. Practically the whole control of 
primary education in the Nationalist part of Ireland 
is in the hands of the clergy. The clergy vigilant 
in defending their privileges everywhere are particu- 
larly jealous in regard to education. 

The Secondary schools in Ireland number some- 
thing less than 500, but of these some are small 
private schools, others are training colleges, or the 
like, and it is found that less than 300 come under 
the influence of the " Intermediate Board." The 
total number of pupils is nearly 20,000, the boys being 
nearly twice as many as the girls. The intervention 
of the State through the Board of Intermediate 
Education is virtually limited to the distribution of 
the funds available for that purpose. The income of 
the Board is about £80,000 of which some £33,000 
comes from interest on securities derived ultimately 
from investments of £1,000,000 obtained from the 
disestablished Irish Church. A sum averaging over 
£46,000 is obtained from what in Ireland is called 
" whiskey money " being the quota allotted to 
education out of the State revenue on customs and 
excise. 1 This money is allocated by the Board 
partly in scholarships to the students who have been 
most successful in the examination prescribed and 
conducted by the Board, and partly in fees granted 
to the schools according to the results of the exam- 
inations. It is permissible for any one to open a 

1 I am informed by the Intermediate Board that its average income 
for the three years ending 31st December 1913 was £82,776 18s. 3d., 
of which the Local Taxation (Customs and Duties) supplied 
£46,566 15s. 5d. 



266 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

Secondary school in Ireland, and to compete for these 
monetary rewards. As a matter of fact, however, 
the greater number of these schools, especially the 
more important ones, are in the hands of the priests. 
A typical example is this : A seminary capable 
of holding from 60 to 100 students, is established 
in a county. The fees received from the students 
are insufficient to maintain the school, and the de- 
ficiency is made good by voluntary subscriptions in 
the county, taken once a year at the churches. The 
revenue derived according to results from the fund 
of the Intermediate Board helps to support the 
general expenses. Nevertheless the total sum avail- 
able throughout the country is insufficient to provide 
for satisfactory intermediate education, and Mr. 
Birrell, the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, 
decided recently to supplement the funds by an 
additional grant of £40,000 per annum, of which the 
capitalised equivalent may be taken as £1,000,000. 
Was this benefit received in an appreciative spirit in 
Ireland ? No ; at least not on the part of those 
authorities most intimately concerned in the work 
of education. For to this gift was attached the con- 
dition that for every fifty pupils in a school there 
must be at least one lay teacher. A storm arose. 
Heated correspondence in the newspapers ensued, and 
with that exaggeration which sometimes manifests 
itself in Irish problems, the good Mr. Birrell with his 
well-intentioned boon found himself held up to the 
world as the insidious arch enemy of Irish happiness. 
In consequence of the criticisms on his scheme Mr. 
Birrell has in fact slightly varied the original terms, 
and now it is proposed that there shall be as many 
lay teachers employed throughout Ireland as will 



EDUCATION 267 

average one for every fifty pupils. The agitation of 
protests produced by the suggestion of introducing 
lay teachers has hitherto prevented the scheme becom- 
ing effective. Nothing could better indicate the 
importance of this question of control, and the 
manner in which the Hierarchy regard the whole 
question of education ; for a poor country like Ire- 
land, accustomed of late to look at the Treasury 
for financial aid, does not light-heartedly reject a 
gift of £1,000,000. 

But then, there was the lay teacher ! There was 
that advanced guard of Satan himself. " The school- 
master is abroad," cried Brougham once in a burst 
of democratic enthusiasm. To the Bishops that 
announcement has been a signal of alarm. " The 
lay teacher is coming," rings out, as once before 
through the citadels of Rome that rumour of panic : 
" Hannibal at the Gates ! " What is the secret of 
the dread of that personage, always so ill-paid and 
generally so modest — the lay teacher ? I once had 
a conversation with an influential public man who 
interests himself in educational matters, and I 
opened thus : "Is there a Catholic and a Protestant 
way of making a pair of boots ? " He reflected deeply 
before replying. There was something, not so much 
in the bare question itself, as in its form, which dis- 
quieted him. 

He replied at length : " Perhaps not." 
' Well then," I continued, " is there a Catholic and 
a Protestant way of solving quadratic equations ? " 

Now he answered brusquely. The cloven hoof 
had been displayed, and he refused to be led 
along the dubious path of Socratic interrogation. 
" Perhaps not," he said, " if you fasten your atten- 



268 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

tion on quadratic equations ; but what is necessary 
to preserve is a Catholic atmosphere about all the 
teaching. Thus, if once you begin to allow lay 
teachers to enter, then you might have algebra 
taught by a Free-thinker, who while instructing them 
in the solution of quadratic equations might drop a 
word or two of the poison of doubt in their ears, and 
so unsettle their faith for ever/' 

This was of course the true doctrine, but it left me 
terribly unsettled as to the healthiness of that belief. 
In that regard we have come to degenerate times. 
Where is the robust faith of a Torquemada or of a 
Calvin, or of a John Knox ? Each of these in his 
turn was ready to extirpate with fire and sword the 
demon of heresy — in its protean and contradictory 
shapes — but neither was afraid for the Faith. 

A Torquemada of our day would no doubt think 
it desirable to burn at the stake any unfortunate 
caught reading " The Origin of Species," but he 
would hardly dream that this book of the devil could 
prevail against the story of Genesis. But here was 
an excellent and public-spirited man who having 
accorded to him that these tender lambs of fifteen to 
nineteen should be kept unspotted from the world, 
except for a few fugitive hours of algebraic instruc- 
tion, saw in that concession the crumbling of the whole 
edifice of religion. 

It was of a tender lady that Shakespeare tells us 
whose nurturing was so delicate that not even the 
winds of Heaven might " visit her face too roughly " ; 
but here in the year of grace 1915, centuries after 
the invention of printing, we are to preserve our in- 
tellectual youth from the dangers of thought, and to 
nurse them like so many moral cripples to the 



EDUCATION 269 

threshold of man's estate. Consider too that corre- 
sponding notions prevail in many well-regulated 
Protestant homes where the youths are not allowed 
to surmise that a Catholic may have some elements 
of good ; and observe the effect when these two sur- 
charged electric conductors are brought close together 
in the public domain. 1 

1 Those who think that the Faith can best be preserved by shelter- 
ing the Irish mind from the rude contact of reason may do well to 
ponder on the following extract from the " Weekly Irish Independent " 
of over twenty years ago, at a time, therefore, when the lay teacher had 
not appeared on the horizon. The " Weekly Irish Independent " was 
edited by a Catholic, and the article was written by Alexander Blaine, 
a Catholic, formerly Member of Parliament for Armagh. My cutting, 
however, I find comes from an American paper, " The Irish Republic " 
of 17th February 1914, which quotes it and heads it " The Truth." 
The paper was owned and edited by Catholics and whatever its merits 
and demerits, was always fiercely clamorous for Irish rights : 

The want of education and scientific training weights our people 
immensely in the race with foreigners. If one half the money 
expended in recruiting an ecclesiastical staff, vastly overmanned, 
for a diminishing and starving people, were given in teaching 
science instead of metaphysics, what a great change could be 
wrought in a short time. The complaint that Irishmen in other 
countries get merged in the mass of foreigners would cease. An 
American Catholic Bishop writes : "At our last public session 
we had sixty or eighty priests collected from all parts of the 
Union. I asked if there were anyone present who could say if 
he knew of any congregation in the country where there was a 
large proportion of native Catholics out of settlements exclusively 
Catholic, and no one could name even one ! " (See " Irish Ecclesi- 
astical Record," May, 1872, page 34.) He also says : " It is only 
a remnant of the children of Catholic emigrants that is saved ; 
the mass of them are lost to the Church." The reason is mani- 
fest — Irish Catholics are very far, indeed, from being the equals 
of Americans in ordinary education, and the disparity is vaster 
in scientific knowledge, and technical skill. Inferiority induces 
regrets, and breaks up hope and courage. Listlessness succeeds 
where energy should prevail. The children of those emigrants 
take a natural pride in being Americans. They refuse to have 
a lower status than their fellow-countrymen. 



270 IRELAND: VITAL HOUB 

We have reached such a state of affairs that one 
observer has declared that there are three solutions 
to the Irish question — Pax britannica, the Ascen- 
dancy of Protestants, the Ascendancy of Catholics, 
with the proviso that these last alternatives must be 
fought out in bloodshed to the extinction of one side 
or the other. This picture, though exaggerated, 
throws into relief the factors at work, and the evils 
of the situation. Pax britannica, what with expan- 
sive programmes, and weak heads in execution, has 
become a little insecure of late. On the other hand 
we must find a solution that will obviate any chance 
of the much predicted " civil war." That indeed 
would be no solution at all. There would be much 
blood-letting, some splendid valour, not a little 
ferocity, and generations of feuds, bitterness, and 
rankling memories. This may seem a theme widely 
divergent from that of education with which we 
started, but this chapter would have missed its in- 
tentions, did it not become apparent that these 
questions are all organically linked, and that the full 
solution of the grand spectacular problem must 
already be commenced by the overhauling of the 
educational system. 

We do not want to see Ireland divided into two 
hostile camps of which the banners are religious 
creeds. We want to unite the excellent business 
capacities, the steadiness, and the grit of Ulster, with 
the fertility of ideas, the vitality, and the intelli- 
gence of the South. And to accomplish this we must 
at every turn where the problem is met with en- 
deavour to eliminate the causes of religious strife. 

To return to the more immediate question of the 



EDUCATION 271 

educational curriculum in Ireland, we find that it is 
too much impressed by the letter that killeth. 
Efficiency in languages, for example, is altogether 
tested by written examinations, and undue stress is 
placed upon grammatical niceties. One is here re- 
minded of Huxley's saying of education at large as 
conceived in these isles : " They study to pass, and 
not to know ; they do not pass, and they don't 
know ! " If ever there was a case where this epigram- 
matic verdict had full strength, it is surely in the case 
of living tongues being taught as dead languages. 

Everyone can find in his own experience facts 
sufficient to show the foolishness of such a method. 
At school I had studied Latin and Greek for years 
without much advantage, but somewhat later when 
I resolved to proceed to Berlin, I saw clearly enough 
that if I wished to understand German and to hold 
converse in that language I should have to hit upon 
some different method. I adopted a rational course 
of training and soon had acquired sufficient know- 
ledge of German to serve my immediate purpose of 
study at the University of Berlin. Before I left the 
University German had become as facile to me as 
English. At a later period I was desirous of reading 
certain mathematical works — those of Euler and 
Jacobi — portions of which had not been translated 
into English, though they were available in Latin. 
For the purpose of this study I acquired in a few 
months a better working usage of Latin than I had 
learnt, and lost, from the years of school and univer- 
sity work. 

I have the words of one of my colleagues in Parlia- 
ment who has devoted much attention to the educa- 
tional system in Ireland, and who knows all its strong 



272 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

points and all its weak points. He said : " If I had 
to start as a Secondary teacher in Ireland, I would 
get the examination papers of the last ten years, 
and make a study of them. In this way I would 
become familiar with their style, the lines on which 
they ran. I would also study the Inspectors, and 
find out their fads, whims, and cranks, for each one 
has his little pet hobbies which he rides to death. 
I would then look over my pupils to find what special 
aptitudes bearing on examinations they manifested. 
Then I would concentrate their efforts on the ex- 
amination, and grind, grind, grind them, as if that 
examination were the sole object of their existence. 
The pupil would get scholarships ; my school would 
get fees ; and the country would get a few young 
men reduced to mental impotence." x 

This was a humorous way of putting his finger on 
the objectionable features of the system, but there 
is no doubt that the recipe so given is followed pretty 
closely by many schools which have become famous 
in Ireland in consequence. The same informant 
told me of the saying of a young girl of fifteen, who 

1 A distinguished Chief Secretary once said that when you asked 
persons connected with education in Ireland what was the chief 
defect of the system, they immediately began telling of the insufficiency 
of their salaries. Certainly if they were National school teachers they 
would be justified. Into these matters, however, and the thousand 
details of administration, and of the character of the courses, ex- 
aminations, and the rest of that order of ideas, it is not possible within 
these limits to enter. 

I find in reading carefully the Inaugural Address (delivered by Dr. 
Starkie, on 3rd July 1911, on the occasion of the inauguration of 
University Extension Lectures) in the Queen's University, Belfast, 
that he sees clearly the evils of the examination system (which indeed 
he helped to remove in the case of the Primary schools) in regard to 
the Intermediate schools. All through his educational work, he has 
been hampered, he says, by the Government. 



EDUCATION 273 

had entered one of the higher schools, bright, intelli- 
gent, and full of good spirits, and who after some 
months of the severe drilling had become dispirited 
and apathetic, and who declared : " I only live for 
the chance of holidays, and in the knowledge that 
school time will some day be past ! " To change the 
system, he believed, would nevertheless require one 
of the greatest revolutions of modern times in Ire- 
land. The problem must be tackled by the Educa- 
tion Minister of the Irish Parliament. 

I have not much belief that any Minister of Educa- 
tion will lead public opinion in the matter. Ministers 
of all classes nowadays seem to gain a reputation 
not by leading the country, not by guiding them- 
selves by these great public needs that arise in pur- 
suing a policy of progress, but rather by all sorts of 
shifts for avoiding grappling with great questions, 
by sailing with the temporary winds of opinion, by 
smooth ways and compromises with falsehood, and 
particularly by the avoidance of " incidents," or what 
the French call " histories." Therefore it is neces- 
sary to call public attention to the fact that herein 
lies a problem, and that all is not well with Irish 
education. 

I have spoken of the great work done for Germany 
by William von Humboldt. It so happened, how- 
ever, that William von Humboldt had certain ad- 
vantages which are much to hope for. In the first 
place he had broad and enlightened views, and in 
the second place he had a free hand in carrying out 
his work. And so it happened that in a few months 
he was able to stamp upon the whole educational 
system a character which has remained with it ever 
since. 
18 



274 IBELAND: VITAL HOUB 

That system I would not like to see adopted in 
Great Britain or Ireland without great modifications. 
Indeed in Germany itself its deficiencies and lack of 
modernity have become so apparent that a new educa- 
tional reformer has arisen, Dr. Kerschensteiner, whose 
task in part has been to supplement elementary 
education in the case of those who are precluded by 
poverty, for example, from pursuing their course 
at a Secondary school or Intermediate school. He 
seeks to find an outlet from what are known as the 
blind alleys of employment, as when a young boy is 
employed as messenger, or van boy, or golf caddy, 
and so earns money while his companions of the 
same age are being apprenticed to trades ; but with 
this difference that the apprentice can hope to become 
a master-tradesman, but the useful messenger may 
become derelict as a man. 

The Continuation school is compulsory in Germany, 
and it is held during the day, and the employer is 
bound so to arrange that the young workman may 
attend. Amongst the subjects taught at Munich 
are not only those useful from a wage-earning point 
of view, as book-keeping, business composition, and 
the application of arithmetic to business, but also 
citizenship, " sensible living," and hygiene. And, 
speaking eclectically, these things are excellent in 
themselves, even though they be overshadowed by 
the fearful incubus of Kaiserthum. 

This, however, brings us back to the quotation 
from Byron with which we started. The antique 
Persians taught what was most likely to be service- 
able, physically, mentally, and morally, to the man 
in regard to his life in the State. Our modern 
societies have become more varied and vast than 



EDUCATION 275 

those of old, and there is an increased demand on the 
individual ; his knowledge must be more complex, 
his special aptitudes more differentiated, yet withal 
better co-ordinated, and more precisely determined 
with regard to his definite functions. Nevertheless 
the same cardinal principle holds, that the object 
of education is to develop his powers in regard to these 
requirements. But above all, note the phrase 
develop his powers. Packing facts into a youth's 
brain is not education ; not even packing many facts, 
and giving such facility for reproducing these as 
enables him to pass an examination brilliantly. The 
youth comes to regard the examination as an ordeal, 
or as a severe test to be negotiated in his path to 
profit or to freedom ; but in this we may have no 
suggestion of educing, or leading forth, strengthen- 
ing, bringing to normal growth and full development, 
the natural talents of the youth. Still less is any 
stress laid upon the moral qualities. 1 

1 Here, for example, is a truly encouraging note : 

A new departure which was not contemplated by any scheme 
was the introduction of a course of farriery by the County Com- 
mittee of Tipperary (N.R.) at the suggestion of the Department 
who became financially responsible for the course. A highly 
qualified expert farrier opened three classes at Nenagh and 
Thurles. Young blacksmiths cycled or walked from within a 
radius of six or seven miles to the selected forges where the in- 
struction was given. They were taught the most improved 
methods of making shoes for normal and abnormal feet ; they 
were shown how to use the best tools, and taught by means of 
specimens the structure and action of the horse's foot and leg. 
During the daytime the instructor visited his students' forges 
when horses that had presented difficulties were brought to him 
for treatment. The students acquired a good deal of useful 
information and increased their skilfulness in practical work so 
much that arrangements have been made to repeat the course in 
other districts. 



276 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

Here I can well imagine the defenders of the present 
system intervening. On the whole, they would say, 

It is paralleled by another : 

The domestic economy classes were in the main well attended 
by grown pupils of a good type. In cookery the material and 
utensils available in the homes of the pupils were employed ; the 
repair and adaptation of worn clothing formed the major portion 
of the instruction in home-sewing, and the essentials of a healthy 
existence were impressed on the minds of the pupils, although 
whilst the instruction was being imparted, the canons of hygiene 
were of necessity not strictly observed. A few of the teachers 
visit the homes of the pupils and do laudable and successful 
work therein, but the majority of the instructresses confine their 
duties to the classroom. This is to be regretted. Tactful and 
sympathetic " visiting " is the most efficacious method of bring- 
ing about a much-needed change in rural homes. 
The reference to the canons of hygiene is explained in this quota- 
tion : 

It is lamentable to think that large areas must be deprived of 

the advantages of instruction or the classes must be held in 

condemned school-houses, barns without fireplaces, insanitary 

market sheds, ill-adapted court-houses, or dilapidated jails. In 

these, teachers try to inculcate habits of neatness and order and 

demonstrate how the peasant's home may be made brighter and 

more attractive. The task is almost as impossible as it is noble. 

I have not at all touched on higher education as taught at the 

University, except perhaps by implication in the scantiness of 

reference in the chapters on Industrial Development, Literature, and 

Science. 

With regard to technical instruction, the Department of Agricul- 
ture and Technical Instruction has of late been putting its best foot 
forward. In one of the recent Blue books giving reports as late as 
July 1913 there will be found gratifying evidence of honest endeavour 
and no small reward : 

These schemes of Technical Instruction have, during the past 

session, had enrolled as students no fewer than 45,341 persons, 

and this number will not, it is anticipated, be largely increased 

under existing conditions. 

Ulster with over 18,000 students leads, this being due to the greater 

abundance of technical trades in that province. The preponderance 

over the other provinces is most marked in regard to young women 

students. Leinster and Munster have each over 11,000 ; they show 



EDUCATION 277 

the pupils are remarkably moral ; they never forget 
their prayers, nor their grace before meat ; they 
are dutiful, obedient, pliable, rather depressed, and 
diffident, sometimes anaemic, sometimes listless or 
furtive, and deprived of initiative. For some of these 
virtues I have no especial admiration ; the test of 
Nature is truthfulness, vitality, energy, determina- 
tion, whether expressed in keen and active striving 
or in the slower persistent purpose that never loses 
sight of its goal. 

Take two young men on the threshold of life : one, 
a gold medallist, prizeman, the round-shouldered and 
spectacled pride of the examination hall, boasting of 
his impedimenta of knowledge which he can never 
apply, pale, priggish, neurasthenic already, but 
capable of following with clerkly intelligence in the 
grooves already traced out ; the other, deprived by 
unlucky chance of early advantages, of medium height, 
straight, active and hardy ; one who has seen things 
at first hand, and who has already thought for him- 
self ; deficient perhaps in many of the graces of know- 
ledge, but possessing an excellent presence and 
cheerful manners, gifts that Aristotle declares to be 
better than all the letters of introduction in the 
world ; beginning to see, moreover, that life is 
earnest and feeling braced to the call, not shrinking 
from work nor craving for stimulants, truthful, 
reliable, large-souled and patriotic, endowed with 

a greater tendency to increase than Ulster. Connaught has only a 
little over 4,000. 

The Department is laudably endeavouring to relate the technical 
schools to the industrial resources and requirements of Ireland. Here 
we begin to hope. Much money will be wanted, a good deal of labour 
will be unproductive, but an upward move in the scale of intelligence 
and in the realms of command is assured. 



278 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the happy assurance of victory warranted by the 
whole spirit of the intellect backed by indomitable 
will. The first I admit is much more sure of prefer- 
ment, he is the " functionary " ; he is the type that 
the modern State especially wants to create ; he has 
all those negations which are called virtues, and he 
has all that pliable want of character esteemed by 
superiors ; he may creep on to honours, if not to 
honour, to office, to competence, possibly even to 
command and to wealth ; he will read well on a tomb- 
stone. And yet, and yet, for the life of me I cannot 
help but prefer the other. 

A fanciful picture, but why, ye gods ? It is 
what all young Irishmen ought to be. 

And then we come to the Intermediate. And as 
I reflect I seem to forecast that the Irish Minister of 
Education will do many little things ; and as I dream 
there comes before my mind what should be done — 
the vision of the great things. 



CHAPTER XI 

LITERATURE 

I remember a story of an old friend, — John O'Leary, 
referred to elsewhere — that during his exile in Paris 
a French lady had told him that she knew only three 
English writers, that they were all witty and all 
mauvais sujets (scapegraces). These were Sterne, 
Goldsmith, and Sheridan. I asked him if she was 
attracted by them as mauvais sujets, but John 
O'Leary answered with judgment that the fact did 
not, at all events, prevent her appreciation. But, 
he cried triumphantly, I was able to tell her that 
they were all Irishmen ! 

The conclusion at which he desired to arrive was 
that in the realm of literature Irishmen were superior 
to Englishmen. There are, however, many questions 
to ask before such an opinion can be endorsed. In 
the first place John O'Leary, in his partisan eagerness, 
was content to accept as final the dictum of a French 
lady, and not the less content that she was unde- 
terred by mauvais sujets. This is a partial view of 
literature, for it omits, as did the French lady osten- 
sibly, Borrow, Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, Keats, 
Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Gibbon, Fielding, Milton, 
to say nothing of Shakespeare. Moreover, no hint 
is here given of the greatness of one who, mauvais 
sujet withal, incarnated, as no other in history, the 

279 



280 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

life, the spirit, the aspirations of a people. I have 
named Robbie Burns. 

Nor is the favourite National poet of Ireland men- 
tioned, Tom Moore ; I say National poet, for of the 
millions of the Irish people all over the world who 
are familiar with the songs of Moore the great 
number know little of Goldsmith, and less of Sheridan 
and Sterne. Moreover, with the rigid standards that 
now prevail in certain Nationalist circles the pride 
of John O'Leary in the performance of Sheridan, 
Goldsmith, and Sterne might well receive a shock, 
for the question would be asked, Are they representa- 
tives of Irish Literature at all ? 

In conversation once in the House of Commons an 
Irish member spoke with pride and appreciation of 
Goldsmith, but closed his remarks with the summary, 
— " English ! " What he meant was that though 
the scene of "The Deserted Village" was pitched in 
Ireland, and though indeed he beamed with satis- 
faction at having seen and identified the spot — Lissoy 
in Westmeath, I believe — yet he found that the whole 
regard and atmosphere resembled that of a sympa- 
thetic Englishman living in Ireland. The church is a 
Protestant church, the pastor is a Protestant vicar ; 
and in Ireland English and Protestant seem often to 
be interchangeable terms. The other poems of Gold- 
smith have no relation to Ireland. " She Stoops 
to Conquer " is an English play. The immortal 
" Vicar of Wakefield," which may be read with 
pleasure by a child, but which captivated Goethe, 
which is realistic, almost brutally so here and there, 
and yet remains an idyll perfumed in the air of 
sweet meadows, the " Vicar of Wakefield " is an 
English story. 



LITERATUEE 281 

Sheridan was the son of an Irishman, but his 
education, his aspirations, his outlook on the world, 
were those rather of an Englishman moving freely 
in that stratum of society which for a time was called 
the Smart Set. Sterne was certainly born in Clonmel, 
but, as the Duke of Wellington once said : " If a 
man be born in a stable, do you call him a horse ? " 

Irishmen have been accused at various times of 
unduly claiming distinguished persons as Hibernians, 
and the list has included not only Wellington, Lord 
Kitchener, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Swift, and 
Sterne, but Jack Randall the Nonpareil, Tom Sayers, 
and Freddie Welsh. I have even heard a good dame, 
deceived by the alluring sound of the name, claim 
Cleopatra as Irish. 

And yet ! omitting Cleopatra as too far-off an 
affinity, there is some ground for these contentions. 
Ireland has always been noted for a certain assimilat- 
ing power. Pass through Ireland and some tincture 
remains. Be born in Ireland, and you are Irish, even 
if it be only, as in the case of Wellington, in the 
obstinacy of the refusal to acknowledge the just 
aspirations of the people. And this truth is no less 
manifest in regard to the more sympathetic move- 
ments of the soul. Sterne, Goldsmith, and Sheridan, 
are indubitably Irish ; Sterne by the light sportive- 
ness of his style ; Sheridan by his wit, and possibly 
by his desire to shine even at the expense of more 
valid qualities ; Goldsmith by his intuition and 
sympathy of which the secret lies deep in the kindness 
of the man and of his race. 

Sheridan lived in an artificial world, in a stratum 
of life — although all were " princes or poets " — too 
narrow, and he has been called even by one of his 



282 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

admirers a " snob." One would wish it were not 
true, for the word is odious. Yet to know how deep 
was the essential manliness of his character and the 
fineness of his spirit, one has but to read his replies 
to Burke on the French Revolution, or to ponder on 
the eulogies showered upon him by Byron — for 
Byron had a good instinct for men. 

Of Goldsmith our view is a little obscured even by 
the familiarity of our knowledge. He is the man 
who " wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll," 
and these witty lines of Garrick, tinctured with a 
little malice, have been repeated so often that the 
features of Goldsmith have been lost in the carica- 
ture. In all Goldsmith's writings there was a deep 
fund of what, for want of a better definition, we may 
call common sense, and this was nowhere better 
displayed than in the famous " Retaliation," in which 
he replied to Garrick's banter and gave us firm and 
true pictures of the celebrated men — notably Burke 
and Garrick himself — whose strength and whose 
foibles he described. 

Goldsmith's worldly means were unfortunately 
never on a par with his fame or his veritable worth, 
and this " oddness " was accentuated no doubt by 
various peculiarities of manner. But we must take 
with a grain of salt the impressions of Goldsmith's 
conversation with Garrick or Johnson and others 
of that set. A man is always liable to be accused 
of want of judgment by those whose judgment he 
doubts, and especially his opinions are thought to 
be absurd if they run counter to common prejudice. 
But Goldsmith had travelled more adventurously, 
and had pondered more deeply, had seen further and 
more clearly than Johnson or Burke ; but the 



LITERATUKE 283 

originality of his views no doubt looked ridiculous 
amid the showy rhetorical flashes of the statesman or 
the doctor's ponderous judgments. To us they are 
far more alive, and far more familiar in their reality. 
Of all the descriptions of Goldsmith and all the essays 
on his character the best — the only one that presents 
the real man, as it seems to me — is that of an Irish 
poet of our day, Padraic Colum. Here we have the 
plastic sympathy of a spirit that can enter into the 
secret of Goldsmith's character. 

" The Vicar of Wakefield " I have mentioned as 
an English novel. That is true in regard to the set- 
ting of the story, true more deeply, for instance, 
than that the " Winter's Tale " is a Bohemian story, 
but not true to the last essence of things. In con- 
versation once with an English Member of Parlia- 
ment, 1 whose sturdy figure and soundness in trade 
seemed to give momentum to his just views on imagin- 
ative literature, he said : " Did you ever notice that 
the characters in Lever's ' Dodd Family Abroad ' run 
pretty well parallel with those of 'The Vicar of 
Wakefield ' ? " 

The resemblance is undoubtedly present, a generic 
resemblance, a something closer — a real family like- 
ness. And when I reflected, I saw the types again and 
again reproduced in the writings of Irishmen who 
have given us pictures of the Irish gentry or of those 
nearly related to them — the good-hearted but not 
worldly-wise head of the family, the shrewd mother 
at times so simple, the wise sister, the foolish sister, 
the raw youth confident in his own cleverness, the 
brilliant adventurer, the ease with which most of 
the family are caught with glitter, the difficulties of 

1 My honourable " friend and gossip," Mr. H. J. Glanville. 



284 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

the plain honest man. Yes, in the writings of Gold- 
smith the essences of Ireland are found deeply in- 
fused. 

There is no intention here of cataloguing Irish 
writers, I desire merely, for the better understanding 
of the people, to touch on the characteristics that 
show in the works of favourite authors. Thackeray 
tells a story of an Irish jarvey, who said that he 
always carried a book of Lever in his pocket. I 
have heard an old man in the West of Ireland recite 
from memory some passages of worldly philosophy 
with which Lever closes one of his stories. Yet Lever 
is not greatly read now in Ireland. He is considered 
out of date and even anti-national. 

This, however, seems to me a strained view. In- 
deed I am here reminded of Lord Charles Beresford 
who, in the course of a humorous utterance in the 
House of Commons, said that if he had been born of 
Nationalist parents he would have been a Catholic 
and a Nationalist, and had his parents been Jewish 
he would have been born a Jew. And so it was with 
Lever ; he was born in a class that had accepted the 
English Government; and in the somewhat hum- 
drum career of a country doctor and, later, consul 
at Trieste, he had never found the opportunity of 
giving play to his adventurous Irish spirit. Had 
he been able so to do it is probable that we 
should never have had those stories of upbubbling 
zest, irresistible dash, and gay abandon — " Charles 
O'Malley," " Harry Lorrequer," and the rest, and 
the more reflective, though no less humorous, " Dodd 
Family Abroad." 

Samuel Lover, at one time no less popular than 
Lever, seems to have sunk into comparative oblivion. 



LITERATURE 285 

A generation laughed over " Handy Andy " ; an- 
other generation, indignant at the caricature which 
had come to be known as the stage Irishman, de- 
nounced as outrageous the creation of the novelist. 
In all this we see an undue seriousness, or at least 
a fomented anger, on the part of the Celt. Why 
should not even caricature be allowed ? The English 
themselves are not so sensitive ; otherwise Thackeray 
and Dickens would have been sent to perdition. In 
the later works of Dickens, especially when he played 
a little too much on his own mannerisms, the inhabi- 
tants of England would seem to be divided roughly 
into unconscionable knaves and imbeciles, with a 
hero and heroine endowed with suburban virtues to 
save the situation. Yet England does not reject 
Dickens. He may not be read with such devotion 
as formerly, but the nation as a whole loves his 
memory and esteems him for a hundred racy types 
whose names have gone into the language. The 
capacity for absorption is one of the signs of the 
greatness of a nation ; and the tenderness towards 
criticism is a confession of weakness. And this 
applies especially to criticism coming from within. 

Lover's " Eory O'More " is, even in the stricter 
sense, a national, or Nationalist, story. Moreover, in 
a volume of " Popular and Patriotic Poetry," col- 
lected and compiled by Mr. R. J. Kelly, I find Lover 
represented among the best. Lover's songs are 
especially songs to be sung, for Lover himself sang 
them — I know a distinguished Irishman, who has 
many years ahead of him still, who once heard Lover 
sing — and this gave them a charm, not always to be 
found in poetic songs. The judgment seems to me 
harsh that could toss Lover aside as one who ridi- 



286 1EELAND: VITAL HOUR 

culed Irish traits for the amusement of an English 
audience. 

Tom Moore has escaped this kind of criticism 
fairly well, though there has arisen a generation which 
has less esteemed the author of the Irish melodies. 
I confess that when I picture Tom Moore tripping 
with his little feet across a drawing-room and singing 
his languishing ditties to the melting eyes of Sas- 
senach duchesses, I hardly rise to the vision of the 
bard of a warrior nation " rightly struggling to be 
free." Delighted at first by the haunting melody 
of his songs, I found later that with repetition the 
sentiment was often sickly sweet and the fund of 
poetic imagery sometimes tawdry. Moved by a 
spirit similar to that which I have just now depre- 
cated I was inclined to disrate Tommy Moore. But 
— whether with deeper wisdom or simply with the 
decadence of moral fibre, who shall say ? — I have 
revised these judgments. A poet should be appre- 
ciated, and enjoyed in his own quality and manner. 
If Moore cannot give us the vision of Keats, the thrill- 
ing ecstasy of Shelley, the lively strength of Byron, 
why seek for that ? Let us define, not condemn him 
for omissions. We cannot blame even Malaga wine 
that it is not nectar, nor the vintage of Champagne. 

And force and strength in poetry ? What are 
they, and whence is derived their secret ? Here we 
must not be led away by superficial terms. I re- 
member once as a boy reading a criticism of Hugh 
Miller on the " Eve of St. Agnes " of Keats. He said 
that although it was beautiful one verse of Dryden 
would make the whole beam kick. Yes, but on this 
analogy why not say also that one speech of Cobbett 
would make Dryden's whole beam kick ? I showed 



LITERATURE 287 

the criticism to my father who smiled and, handing 
me back the book, replied : " You should read Hugh 
Miller on * The Old Red * ; he is great there." » 

And so to return to Tom Moore ; snatches of his 
songs from "Lalla Rookh" have been sung by the 
boatmen on the Tigris ; " The Minstrel Boy " and 
" The Last Rose of Summer " have stirred the feel- 
ings and swept with yearning sadness the minds of 
countless thousands the wide world over. 

There is a subtler strength here than in the fierce 
rhetoric of the rude mob orator. Here is the genius 
that, moving in the delicate things of form, of spirit, 
of witching words and haunting air, finds its alchemy 
at work in the secret chambers of the heart. The 
strength that binds a nation, the feelings that fire its 
impulses, cannot all be set down in a ledger, nor 
weighed in the scales of " practical men." 

Moreover, we find that if Tommy dearly loved a 
lord — this is a saying of Byron, spoken in a laughing 
vein, and perhaps a little harsh if taken too seriously 
— Tommy dearly loved Ireland. When the patriotic 
note of Ireland is struck his voice comes forth with 
unwonted vigour, and little Tommy who dearly loved 
a lord, who delighted in Society, who basked in the 
smiles of the great ; that same brave little man went 
with Byron to visit Leigh Hunt in prison, when the 
hapless Cockney poet was the mark of obloquy of 
the " highest circles " in the land. 

Ireland has never lacked poets. One is tempted 
even to smile in counting their numbers. Yet these 
smiles, if in contempt, would be singularly misplaced ; 
for in the most obscure of them, read with sympathy 

1 "The Old Red Sandstone" — a geological treatise of Hugh Miller 
abundant in original ideas. 



288 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

and insight, something of the true inward stirring, 
the genuine afflatus, will be found always. The 
greatest of them all are unknown, the forgotten bards 
who have given us those airs of marvellous delight — 
let us cite only three, " Kathleen Mavourneen," 
" O'Donnell Aboo," and " The Wearing of the Green." 
Moore himself was indebted to such old airs for the 
charm of his songs ; certainly he has wedded them 
to appropriate words. The secret of Moore's poetry 
is all in its melody ; and indeed when that fails, as, 
for example, in some of the narrative verse of " Lalla 
Rookh," he is capable of producing harsh and jangled 
lines. 

A greater favourite than Moore nowadays in 
Nationalist circles, it appears, is Thomas Davis. 
That is rather due to the force of the sentiment, the 
passion of utterance, corresponding to the politics of 
the day, rather than to the pure poetic inspiration. 
Certainly that was not lacking in Davis ; he is pos- 
sessed of the bardic fervour, his verse rolls nobly 
forth, the words give flame to Irish hearts. The 
sentiment is always manly and inspiriting. A regi- 
ment might march to the Front singing the songs 
of Davis, or animated by the words of his famous 
" Fontenoy." 

Yet when we are considering the product of Ireland 
in the world's literature we must take no narrow 
view. Literature is, after all, a discourse of life, 
poetry is the most intense expression of its feelings. 
And life is rich in capacities, extraordinarily high, 
great, and spiritual. In all this Davis is strong 
but in one form, the poetry of patriotism, and he 
gives this forth in ardent verse, not always impeccable 
in workmanship, and couched rather in the on-rushing 



LITERATURE 289 

force of rhetoric, than breathing of the subtle air of 
poetry. Whether in spite of this, or because of this, 
it is difficult to say, the direct appeal and passionate 
fervour of Davis have made him one of the most 
potent influences in forming the opinions of Young 
Ireland to-day. 

James Clarence Mangan is more scholarly, more 
pensive, more inclined to the minor key than Davis ; 
less known to the mass of the people his poems 
have exercised a singular fascination in the minds 
of Irish students of literature. 

The most popular, however, of all Irish songs, for 
by popular acclaim it has become the National 
Anthem, is " God Save Ireland." 

The episode commemorated by this song, which is 
referred to on page 31 of the chapter " Glances at 
History," had important political consequences, for 
it is said that it first turned Mr. Gladstone to look 
into the Irish problem, not from the point of view 
of Party prejudice but with the desire to know the 
depth and strength of the feeling that could prompt 
such audacious deeds and, rallying to men whom 
English law condemned as criminals, elevate these to 
the glory of heroes and martyrs. 

On the score of literature, however, this song can 
hardly be looked upon finally as Ireland's National 
Anthem. One of the most difficult of all feats is that 
of writing a National Anthem, for few indeed have 
attained success. The words must be so simple as 
to be popular, and yet not descend to doggrel. The 
National Anthem of England fulfils the first of these 
conditions, but hardly escapes the pitfalls of the 
second. The theme should be broadly national, not 
something only incidental. Hence " God Save Ire- 
19 



290 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

land " is insufficient. The air should be stirring, 
spirited, it should sound like a tocsin triumphant in 
clarion notes. Here " The Wearing of the Green " 
is weak ; the air is plaintive not martial. The 
American " Star-Spangled Banner " fails in the 
technical difficulty that the range of the notes is too 
great for a popular chorus. But a song that fulfils 
the conditions here expressed might still fall short 
of all that makes a National Anthem. There is 
required, even within this limit, something of genius, 
something of happy surprise, and all of captivation, 
something that ascends with the spirit of the people, 
something deeply based and familiar, yet splendorous 
and grand. The Welsh " March of the Men of Har- 
lech " is great, but the " Marseillaise " seems to me the 
one great achievement in all these respects, though 
read in cold blood the words appear not above medio- 
crity. Ireland still waits for her National Anthem. 

Amongst writers of a later date than those men- 
tioned, William Rooney, with his song, " The Men of 
the West," and others of the kind, seems to have repro- 
duced the veritable old Irish spirit, the bardic passion, 
combined with modern aspirations. 

Of the Irish Americans Mr. Joseph I. C. Clarke 
achieved signal success with his poem, " The Fighting 
Race," which commemorates an incident in the 
Spanish American War and glorifies the bellicose 
qualities of the Irish. In Irish cricles " The Fighting 
Race " has outrivalled Davis's " Fontenoy " as a 
favourite poem for recitation ; and here in place of 
the unbridled enthusiasm and force of Davis we have 
the peculiar balance, and steadiness, and grit, which 
characterise the Americans, and which the Irish in 
the States quickly appropriate. 



LITERATURE 291 

Neither William Rooney nor Joseph Clarke has 
produced a considerable volume of verse, and in the 
realm of literature, at least during the poet's life- 
time, victory is on the side of the big battalions. 
But if contemporaries are impressed by bulk, pos- 
terity demands an original note and some supreme 
excellence. With this standard in view most of the 
innumerable poets of Ireland vanish. 

Two or three Irish writers should be especially 
noted, Maria Edgeworth, the Banims, and Carleton. 
Miss Edgeworth has already been referred to more 
than once, for her stories show such deep insight 
into character, and such inevitable linking of character 
with events, that they become the best of the annals 
of Ireland. Only Lever in his later days is compar- 
able to Miss Edgeworth for genial satire and pathetic 
humour. Nevertheless one of the most learned of 
Irishmen in public life told me recently that he had 
never read a line she had written ; he added effusively 
that he was acquainted with her name. 

The Banims are to Irish prose what Crab be was to 
English verse. "Nature's sternest painter yet the 
best," Byron said of the poet, but he did not induce 
people to steep themselves in Crabbe. Why ? Partly 
perhaps that he was so true to nature as he found it, 
and partly — to be just to Nature — because his truth 
was somewhat too superficial and dull. 

So it is with the Banims. The study of their works 
is profitable if one desires to know the true Irish 
character, but nowadays it seems to require some such 
incentive to read them with diligence. All truth is, in 
fact, relative, and what we hope to find in an author 
is not the truth that lies on the surface, but the truth 
seen through the medium of a bright spirit endowed 



292 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

with life and riancy and force. And unfortunately 
your conscientious writers generally lack sparkle. 

Carleton lacked neither sparkle, nor life, nor force ; 
yet he is not greatly read nowadays, though always 
with immense appreciation by those who make his 
acquaintance. He is redolent of the genuine, native 
Irish humour, and he can describe a faction fight that 
stirs Irish blood as never did Homer nor the most ac- 
curate historian of the battle of Waterloo. Then why 
is Carleton neglected ? Because, after all, his qualities, 
sufficient for his time and generation, give little of 
the depth or universality that win immortal fame. 

Literature is tried in subtle tests even though 
those who form their judgment may never have 
dreamt of expressing these in terms of canons of 
criticism. And for great literature there is demanded 
something that corresponds to the scientist's standard 
of generality. A knowledge of the field is not enough, 
there should be over this the play of an intellect — 
the intellectual calibre counts for much — and an 
ample compass of emotion and sympathies. Life 
should be known not merely as it moves around us, 
but also in a vertical plan ; and the whole story 
should be absorbed in an atmosphere which takes its 
tinctures from the spirit of the author, and which 
serves to wrap the theme in associations that come 
from far away. If to all this we can add the impress 
of a fine power, or the brilliancy of wit, then we have 
gained much ; and occasionally in single works and 
in fragments these have been sufficient in themselves 
to win a lasting repute. 

One could cite hundreds of Irish writers whose 
writings are interesting and agreeable, who have wit 
and humour, whose verse is impeccable within its 



LITERATURE 293 

limits ; yet this is not all. We feel that their world 
is too limited ; that they have no general significance. 
Certainly a small realm of actual experience may 
suffice for the production of a notable work of litera- 
ture, witness " Jane Eyre/' or " The Story of an 
African Farm." But in each of these what is really 
interesting is the story of the inner life, seen as 
though behind a veil. In some stories, as for in- 
stance, in " My Lady of the Chimney Corner," of a 
contemporary Irish writer, Alexander Irvine, the 
very meagreness of experience and incident aids the 
intense concentration on the spiritual side of one 
figure, and a powerful effect is produced ; but here 
also we have great qualities, a clearness of the 
lines and reinforcement of the impression produced 
by the originality of truth, by the moral courage 
required to lay bare deep and intimate feelings. 

As a rule, however, there is a fatal tendency to 
follow in the track of others, to produce tuneful 
verse with facility, to accept the old story of emo- 
tions and feelings seen from a familiar standpoint. 
The intellectual calibre is lacking here. The true 
stamp of genius, the seizing, the winning, the feeling 
of inspiration is seldom known. 

Hitherto, I have spoken mainly of the day pre- 
ceding ours. The Young Ireland movement gave 
rise to much verse-making besides that of Davis, 
much of it good within the limits we have noticed. 
The Fenian movement has a great literature of its 
own, but the songs, for instance, are the songs of 
the people, the productions of ardent men, not cul- 
tivated as a rule in letters, though even here with 
notable exceptions, such as John Keegan Casey 
(" Leo "), Ellen O'Leary, and in prose writings Luby 



294 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

and Kickham, on whom fell the mantle of Carleton. 
Isaac Butt's movement does not seem to have stirred 
imagination deeply. T. D. Sullivan's songs of the 
Land League days have been referred to. Then, as has 
often happened in Ireland, a literary phase apparently 
unlike anything that has preceded it has gradually cast 
its spell over the country. This has been known as the 
Irish revival, and even the somewhat pompous term, 
the Irish Renaissance, has been bestowed upon it. 

Some of the causes that helped to foster it must 
be sought in the near history of Ireland. Physical- 
force ideas had become discouraged, the downfall of 
Parnell and the consequent failure of his great 
campaign, had torn the glamour from Parliamentary 
manoeuvres. The minds of the young men turned 
inward, and fastened with the energy of souls seek- 
ing salvation on the culture of letters, on the study 
of the Irish language, on the revival of the Irish 
customs, even of Irish dress, and of vague shadows 
of Irish mythology. A great impulse in this direc- 
tion was given by the efforts of Dr. Douglas Hyde, 
who though a Protestant scion of the English stock 
made himself the modern incarnation of the old 
Irish spirit. He taught his generation the beauties 
of the ancient Irish literature, and he inspired his 
disciples with enthusiasm for their studies. The 
Gaelic League was mainly his work. 

Among the exploits of modern Ireland must be 
reckoned the rediscovery of Deirdre. Perhaps Deirdre 
came as a kind of tacit compromise, for whose sake 
Catholics and Protestants mingled in brotherhood, 
held together in rapturous devotion to high ideals 
not well denned ; for it was impossible that the feel- 
ings of ecstasy should pass out on the one side to 



LITERATURE 295 

the Saints of the Church, and on the other to Queen 
Elizabeth; hence Deirdre was not only a beautiful 
vision in herself, but a blessed haven of rest for souls 
tempest-tossed in vague imaginings. 

One of the most eminent of modern Irishmen, at 
least in the practical sphere — Mr. George Russell for 
the co-operators is also the M for the mystics of 
Ireland — painter, poet, and, one might almost say, 
prophet. It is the delight of the M, I am told, on 
a warm summer day to recline under the shadow of 
an old round tower, or ruined abbey, or patriarchal 
tree, and, with eyes closed to all but visions, behold 
passing before his inward gaze, the pomp, and glory, 
all the allurement and the charm of ancient Irish story. 
Luckily when M becomes Mr. Russell he can write 
like a poet on scour in cattle, winter dairying, or the 
growing of artichokes ; but many of his disciples, not 
possessing, perhaps even despising, these more earthly 
accomplishments, fastened only the more tenaciously 
on the cult of Deirdre. 

And so it happened that many a good Nationalist 
returning after a few years* absence from Dublin, and 
expecting to find again the old familiar signs and 
battle-cries of Parnellism and the Land League, and 
the ideals of Wolfe Tone, discovered that he was 
looked upon askance by some of the younger men, 
treated as hardly within the pale of Nationalism at 
all, because he faltered in the language, and only 
dimly and unappreciatively knew Deirdre. 

This was the form of Irish development which most 
especially appealed to enthusiastic and aesthetic 
English people, not all young ladies, who, liable to 
be overswept by successive modern crazes, became 
infatuated with all things Irish. I have met young 



296 IEELAND : VITAL HOUR 

Englishwomen devoted to Deirdre, gazing with in- 
tent, even intense expression, into unfathomable 
depths of space, and uttering oracular sayings. 
Oracular sayings became for a time a real study or 
diversion in Dublin literary circles ; such sayings, 
for instance, as " Who knows but that the born fool 
may be wisest of all mankind ? " " One may best 
serve Truth by refusing to accept it ; " " Poetry 
may be saved again, but only by becoming brutal 
and low ! " When once the trick of these profound 
sayings was known, it was not difficult to turn them 
out freely ; they held small coteries together, and did 
no exterior harm. But the cult of Deirdre extended 
even to the rank of Cabinet Ministers, and I have 
known one such, who toyed with literature, sit seri- 
ously, aesthetically, and deeply, through the per- 
formance of a play of Deirdre. 

This indeed brings us to the unique figure of Mr. 
W. B. Yeats. I have never been able to take Mr. 
Yeats seriously in his role of poet, but one must 
really respect the personality which he has displayed 
and impressed upon Irish imagination. Mr. Yeats 
introduced into Ireland the moonlight school of 
poetry. Life was seen as something unreal, shadowy, 
and there was shown play and exaltation of emotions 
that had not hitherto seemed an essential part of Irish 
nature, nor indeed of any human nature ; there was 
much talk of Celtic twilight and mysticism. There 
was much vogue, too, for paradoxical sayings, and for 
the utterance of peculiar remarks, of the kind quoted, 
which really covered shallow speculations or mere 
silliness of thought. It became an article of creed 
to despise science, to look superciliously on all modes 
of accurate reasoning, and to endeavour to reach far- 



LITERATURE 297 

distant truths not by the toil or devotion demanded 
by such humdrum methods, but by the cultivation 
of debile moods. 

There is, no doubt, in inspiration a peculiar ecstatic 
state in which the mind attains fine illumination, 
and in which the power of the view and the faculty of 
expression are exalted as if by magic. But the fund 
of all great thought, and of all great purpose, is deep 
sincerity, truthfulness, development ; and , in whatever 
form elaborated, a great interior travail has preceded 
the moments of genius. It was this sincere toil and 
preparation that the Yeats school especially ignored. 

The rollicking Irish humour that finds its expres- 
sion in Lever, the deeper, gloomier, but stronger and 
fiercer characteristics that leap to light in Carleton, 
were dismissed, either as not Irish, or as the mani- 
festation of a spirit lower than the mystic, tenuous 
talk of moonshine, fairies, omens, occultism, and all 
the paraphernalia of that most tiresome of literary 
modes, symbolic poetry. The old picture of the 
Irish harper, shaking his locks behind his shoulders 
while his fingers played on the strings, in rapt vision 
recalling the glory of Erin of old ; or even the 
melodious pipings of Tom Moore melting the soul in 
sentimental woe ; these gave way to the exotic figure 
of an Egyptian playing on a mandoline and winning 
out a thin and dwindled strain. 

If this temper, this poetry, really represented the 
Celtic spirit, then we need seek no further for the his- 
tory of Ireland's griefs, the causes of her woes. That 
would be inherent in the character of a people, and 
the rest would be but anecdote and gossip. At one 
time the poetry of Mr. Yeats was considered in select 
circles as a kind of touchstone of Nationalism. The 



298 IEELAND: VITAL HOUR 

ardent patriot might possess the soul of Robert 
Emmet combined with that capacity for assimilating 
Blue books which marks the practical politician; 
but he was confronted with the question : What do 
you think of Yeats ? and if he hesitated he was lost. 
It is true that this ordeal was not quite so severe as 
it seemed, for lip service satisfied all the demands. 
The understanding, or even the reading, of Mr. 
Yeats always seemed to be secondary to the observ- 
ance of certain rites — the cultivation of the intense 
gaze, the shrouding of the personality in an air of 
secret gloom, the belief in spells, and incantations, 
and the practice of profound utterance. All that 
counted was Art, and by Art was really meant such 
products as tended towards this mystic atmosphere. 

The word Art always has a potent force with those 
who, hidden long in Philistinism, are beginning to 
emerge into realms of light. Thus it happened that 
about the period of the ascendancy of Mr. Yeats — 
for he is now anathema to certain of his former adu- 
lators — there came to my house in Paris a good Irish- 
man of the old school, whose outward appearance 
suggested to me the tilling of the green fields of Erin 
rather than the subtleties of aesthetic taste. He fixed 
me, however, with an earnest look, and said : " They 
do be putting quare plays on in Dublin nowa-days ! '* 

I replied : " Ah ! " with encouraging intimation. 

" Yes," he continued, " very quare plays. They 
do be putting on plays where a boy from the country 
kills his da ! " 

" That seems wrong." 

" Yes. And they make us out to be nothing but 
cut-throats, and murderers, and dijinirates." 

" What on earth do they mean by doing that ? ,: 



LITERATURE 299 

" They calls it— ART ! " 

He uttered this word after a pause, and with a 
peculiar solemn emphasis, and my honest friend had 
a look in his eyes as if he too was sounding the infinite 
space to know the secret of a term that produced, 
that excused, and that explained so much. The play 
he referred to was Synge's " Playboy of the Western 
World," of which I will say a word or two later. 

If I am inclined to laugh at the Yeats' aspect of 
literature, I do not mean to imply that such weak- 
nesses are peculiar to the Irish character. The whole 
moonshine school of poetry with its tenuity, its 
inanities, its affectations, and its air of something 
mysterious and significant covering its silliness — this 
school was, I believe, not a real Irish growth at all, 
it was a product of the aesthetic movement of the 
circles of culture in London. But the veritable 
psychology of all such phases is always more inter- 
esting than that of the product itself. Bristol in 
the days of Byron had its adulation of Amos Cottle, 
and Paris in the time of Moliere possessed its 
Precieuses Ridicules. 

Let us not be severe in these matters. They 
spring from the desire implanted in the human mind 
of rising towards excellence, thence of achieving 
unique distinction. They are not unmingled with a 
genuine patriotism, however cramped or exclusive. 
Moreover they express the revolt against a view of 
life too gross, too grinding and harsh, too sordid, or, 
as expressed in Philistinism, satisfied with the outward 
show of things, lost in low content and the vulgar 
display of opulence. 

But they betray their weakness in the very attacks 
on the bourgeois class ; they seem to reveal even a 



300 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

secret envy, for they really make the bourgeois 
ideals the standards of their accomplishment, they 
are not happy in their exclusiveness unless the 
bourgeois becomes interested in their doings if only 
to the extent of denouncing their decadence. Their 
attitude in regard to culture is that of the University 
don who values his Greek less for the great domain 
that it opens to his view than that it enables him to 
sniff on his grocer at church. 

But apart from these considerations criticism of 
literature is one of the most uncertain of the arts, 
and so it has happened in England that books, as 
for instance, "Endymion," "Sartor Resartus," and 
" Lavengro," have been ignored and derided by one 
generation of critics, and extolled to the skies by others 
more enlightened. In this country mere politics, and 
unfortunately politics in the narrowest sense, have 
always played a part in regard to the appreciation of 
books. A barrier even more difficult is placed in the 
way of original work, for to few critics does it seem 
necessary to take a wide survey of human life and 
human thought, to judge in the free regard of deep, 
abiding principles. Men set up in their minds certain 
standards, founded on classic excellences, and estimate 
by comparison with these models. The works which 
spring from inspiration, marked therefore by original 
thought and incommunicable style, are those des- 
tined to run into collision with the law in the authori- 
tative world of letters. 

All these considerations make me tender towards 
that phase of Irish literature which some have 
ventured to call the new Renaissance. Mr. Yeats 
requires rather to be defended now, for whereas it 
was once considered something suspect in patriotism 



LITEBATUBE 301 

to fail to admire his artistic merits, some of his former 
admirers now question the Nationalism of those who 
appreciate his intention. And yet he moulded better 
than he knew, and Irish vitality and wit have 
reasserted themselves. Mr. Yeats has deserved well 
of Irish literature if for nothing else than the founda- 
tion of the Abbey Theatre, and for the courage and 
persistence of purpose with which he has realised his 
dream and endowed it with importance. 

When I first saw an Abbey Theatre play — it was 
one of Mr. William Boyle's, " The Building Fund "— 
I felt like the unknown member of the audience who 
called out to Moliere : " Courage ! That is the true 
Comedy/' Here for the first time I beheld the verit- 
able delineation of Irish character, with all its real 
tenacious strength, but with no less of its racy humour. 
The " stage Irishman " was gone, but he had been 
replaced by something vastly more interesting. Here 
was the picture of Irish life, epitomised, selected, and 
arranged with artistry, so well arranged that the 
consummate skill remained hidden in the ease of the 
production. 

" The Workhouse Ward " of Lady Gregory is a 
wonderful little piece. The theme is of the simplest. 
Two old men are in the workhouse. One has a 
chance of going out, for his sister will provide for 
him. He refuses to leave unless his friend is taken 
with him. This is an excessive demand ; they are 
both left in the House, and they begin to talk, at first 
amicably. They go on to argue about the relative 
ancient magnificence of their families. They proceed 
to discuss the exclusive right of certain families to 
the visit of the banshee, and they finish by hurling 
the pillows at each other — the colloquy has taken 



302 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

place while they lay in their beds. On this theme 
Lady Gregory has embroidered a story of Irish char- 
acter ; we seem to get glimpses into all that has 
made Irish history, and every quirk and quip of 
expression is sure and lively with Irish nature. 

The productions of the Abbey Theatre have been 
considerable even in volume ; and the later plays 
such as those of John G. Ervine and Lord Dunsany 
have not left unfulfilled the early promises. The 
Abbey Theatre has also found offshoots in various 
directions. The studies of Irish life produced by the 
Ulster players exhibited the same general character- 
istics as found in those of the South and West. 

The well-known play, "General John Regan," has 
also a family likeness to those of the Abbey Theatre. 
The author, George Birmingham, or, as he is known 
in private life, the Rev. James Owen Hannay, 
certainly views his characters from a more detached 
standpoint, and he has a keener eye for the foibles 
of the people than sympathy with the veritable 
aspirations of their nature, but he has been influenced 
by the examples of Abbey Street, and it is upon a 
path already cleared that he has entered with so 
much gay abandon and success. 

I will interpose here a remark to prevent misunder- 
standing : It is far from my intention to give a 
review, however summary, of the works of Irish 
writers. Many of note have been omitted altogether. 
I have said nothing even of Gerald Griffin, the gifted 
author of " The Collegians," nor of the Knocknagow 
of Kickham, nor of Leamy, nor of the racy Mr. 
William O'Brien, nor of Mr. Stephen Gwynn, lover 
of letters, nor of Katharine Tynan, favourite with 
so many, nor of Seaumas MacManus, with his good 



LITEBATUBE 303 

stories redolent of the turf smoke, nor of Downey, 
whose " Merchant of Killogue " gives a serious 
setting to his fund of humour, nor of Robert Lynd's 
" Home Life in Ireland," with its charming indi- 
vidual style, nor of the sensitive and charming 
Stephen MacKenna, nor of Conal O'Biordan, thought- 
ful and daring beyond others, in " The Piper " and 
"Shakespeare's End/' nor of the scholarly Bolleston 
of noble sentiment and rolling line. What I have 
sought rather is to indicate the character and ten- 
dencies of Irish life as seen through different phases 
of literature, and to point these observations here 
and there by reference to some characteristic work. 

There is one, however, who cannot be passed over 
in silence, if only by the boldness and challenge of 
his work, and the storm of protest it has aroused. 
This is Synge of the famous " Playboy of the Western 
World." 

The Playboy was the cause of a great disturbance 
in Chicago ; the actors were, I believe, arrested, and 
the whole American press gave itself up to the dis- 
cussion of the morality, or immorality, of the pro- 
duction and its right to represent Irish character. 
Political elections depended on the answers to the 
sharp questions of partisans on the merits of the 
Playboy, and spectacled Teutonic professors, con- 
vinced that here was a world-event, fell to trans- 
lating the Playboy into woolly German. 

In Dublin the note was rather indifference when 
not enjoyment. In London — it was mainly over- 
cultured people who went to the play here — the mood 
was that semi-religious, hypnotic state in which, with 
serious concentrated minds, the same audiences are 
accustomed to worship Shakespeare or follow Berg- 



304 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

son. Many hidden beauties were discovered that 
had never occurred to Synge himself, and many in- 
genious and fatuous interpretations and ascription 
of intentions were offered that faintly reeked of the 
German commentators. 

This brings me to a curious observation of the 
difference of the Irish and the English mind. I will 
not lay stress on race, for the elements have become 
really too compounded for that ; but there is some 
subtle alchemy in the air of Ireland that infuses into 
all the quality — Irish. A healthy man will laugh 
more in Ireland in three weeks than in England in 
nine months. Then perhaps he will describe the 
Irish people as sad ; and if he be an Englishman, and 
sympathy with Ireland be on his programme, he will 
return laden with tempered enthusiasms, and he will 
talk of the Celtic twilight, Gaelic mysticism, the 
idealism of Deirdre, and he will be earnest over " The 
Playboy of the Western World," earnest and serious. 

Nothing seems to me more subtly amusing than the 
seriousness of Englishmen, on some aspects of the 
Irish question, for instance, or on that same Playboy. 
It would take a volume of psychology to explain 
what I mean, and then possibly my meaning would 
not be clear, but an Irishman would understand at 
once. It is not that the Irishman is less interested 
or less appreciative of the Playboy, but he sees things 
in a different light, or as with two lights where the 
Englishman has one. I am not here claiming any 
superiority of intellect for the Irishman — the de- 
ficiency of the nation in the realm of science would 
alone, I repeat, bring me up with a round turn there — 
but, in what may be a shallow stratum, the Irish mind 
moves more lightly and quicker all round the object. 



LITERATURE 305 

We have even experimental proof of this. Dr. 
Sophie Bryant, in her book, " The Genius of the 
Gael/' remarks of the House of Commons : " When 
a joke is made, or a humorous incident occurs, it 
takes effect first on the Irish benches : a burst of 
simultaneous laughter issues from that part of the 
building. Thence it is taken up by the neighbouring 
benches and rolls gradually over the House." 

I have noticed this often myself, the gay irrepres- 
sible laughter of the Irish gradually infecting the 
House and spreading and being returned to us at 
length in the serious mirth — as if this was their 
" considered Bill " — of the back-benchers above the 
gangway on the Ministerial side. 

And so with regard to the rollicking Playboy, to 
treat it with grave concern is to deal with it harshly. 
It was, in fact, the Playboy to which my honest 
friend of some pages back referred when he uttered 
the bewildering but oracular word : ART. 

It is not customary for a young Irishman to cut 
down his " da " with a shovel, even on a difference 
of opinion ; if he did so far forget himself, he would 
not be made a hero by the countryside. 

It is true that a certain resistance to the law 
might appeal to many in the West ; but it is also 
true that the ties of family are stronger in Ireland 
than in most parts of the world. Regarded seriously 
the plot of the Playboy is absurd ; regarded as an 
absurdity the play becomes " serious " — as I once 
heard a Frenchman remark of one of Courteline's 
comedies — that is to say something of real value. 
The Playboy in its fantastic form gives delightful 
glimpses into Irish character. It is said, and I be- 
lieve with truth, that Synge was accustomed to 
20 



306 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

listen to the conversation of peasants with great 
attention and to note down as many quaint and 
curious phrases as he could. Now the quaint and 
curious phrases of the West are often translations or 
adaptations from the old Irish ; so that here we fall 
in with a rare discovery, the ideas, turns of thought, 
and modes of expression of a people with a thou- 
sand years of literature behind them suddenly 
emerging into an alien time. It was this discovery 
of the Playboy rather than the invention — that is 
to say the invention of the plot — that gives to the 
little drama its freshness, its richness, and all its 
racy zest and go. Synge has by no means exhausted 
that field, for the transcription of the picturesque 
and striking language of the West is almost sufficient 
in itself to make a play run. 

I knew Synge in Paris long before the days of his 
fame, and, possibly in memory of that friendship, 
he has introduced into the Playboy an allusion to 
myself. Synge in his Parisian days was a singular 
figure. He was poor, and to be poor in Paris is to 
be doubly poor, and Synge, I am afraid, was very 
poor. He lived in the Latin quarter adjacent to the 
Luxembourg Gardens, in the street (rue d'Assas) 
which Alphonse Daudet has selected for the opening 
scene of his " Sapho." It was a neighbourhood 
made notable at one time by the studios of famous 
artists — Whistler, Bouguereau, and others. Synge 
with an allowance of less than £50 a year had acquired 
the art of living frugally with content. Many in the 
Latin quarter subsist on means less substantial but 
more precarious than Synge's modest competence. 

Adversity may be a fine school, but it is a bad 
dwelling house ; and it has this inconvenience that 



LITERATURE 307 

it greatly restricts the circle of one's friends. On 
the other hand it induces reflection. Synge was, no 
doubt, even at that time nursing the hopes and 
desires that afterwards found vent in his bold but 
all too brief career, but he had not yet found his 
work, and there seemed to me no especial attraction 
in his personality. A tall, rough-hewn, square, broad- 
shouldered man he was ; but this picture should not 
call up images of rude and granite strength. He 
gave no suggestion of athletic prowess with his bulk ; 
he appeared as the belated descendant of a race that 
had dwelt with the mastodon, and which though 
losing its rude force in the contact with a debilitated 
civilisation had not become absorbed or assimilated. 

Such was Synge with his overgrown height, his 
clumsy proportions, his great square head, his plain 
features, his somewhat sombred eyes, and his modest 
expression of kindness. He spoke in a voice of 
muffled timbre as of a peculiar husky flatness which 
masked its true expression and diminished its volume. 

He seemed neither to rebel against his meagre fate, 
nor to flaunt it, nor to be greatly ambitious, or at 
least impatient, of changing it. A quiet insistent 
purpose pervaded his personality, and the observa- 
tions of what seemed to me a slow, even if thought- 
ful mind, were marked by good judgment rather 
than by any sparkling brilliance. Synge was study- 
ing French literature during his days in Paris, but 
he possessed few acquaintances among those who 
could talk with him upon such subjects. He moved 
in the Irish colony, but even amongst them he was 
retiring, solitary, and in no way conspicuous, though 
he was made welcome wherever he went. His de- 
meanour was always that of a gentleman. 



308 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

At that time I was acquainted with some of the 
modern French writers who have since become 
celebrities in the world of Paris, and it so happened 
that, as Synge had produced nothing yet, it had not 
occurred to me to associate this gentle giant, of the 
singular stamp and somewhat retiring style, with 
success in literature. Indeed if I were to say the 
last word of candour, I do not think that his famous 
" Playboy " would in Paris have placed him on a 
pinnacle. It was staged in Paris not long ago, and 
some of the good Parisians, inveterate playgoers for 
thirty years, were not a little puzzled by this strange 
production. The captivating, irresistible " Playboy " 
was by some called deadly dull. 

Here a little explanation is required, for it is called 
to my recollection that one evening when I was 
making my way to my seat to attend a production 
in French of one of the brightest and best of all 
contemporary writers — Mr. George Bernard Shaw — a 
distinguished French critic remarked : " Now we 
are going to be bored for a couple of hours ! " The 
fact is, for one thing, that to bring wit to Paris is like 
bringing coals to Newcastle. Moreover the sap and 
savour of the words is lost in translation, even in 
good translations ; and in the case of Synge that 
was fatal. For not merely is the French language 
flexible, polished by attrition through the ages, 
macerated and refined, but French literature is cast 
in a form where the subtle influences of centuries 
of civilisation have given balance, adjustments of 
standards, and taste. 

Breaking into such a stratum of thought a play of 
Synge's produces something of that impression 
which his appearance sufficed to suggest, something 



LITERATURE 309 

that seemed to belong to another age. Now in France, 
not more than in Ireland, is it usual, still less laud- 
able, for a young peasant to kill his da ; and when a 
play founded on this theme, and presented in excel- 
lent French, was shown to the cultured inhabitants 
of Lutece, they stared as they would, though politely, 
at a troglodyte who had invaded a salon of the 
Boulevard St. Germain. 

Which of these conceptions of literature is right ? 
Perhaps the proper answer is that one should seek to 
define rather than directly to compare. The Playboy 
is a little work of genre painting, but this makes only 
a small part of art. Because Wilkie, for instance, 
has painted, shall we not admire Turner ? Or 
because Mrs. Jarley's show is popular and amusing, 
shall the Elgin marbles be left unvisited, or the 
Dance of Carpeaux torn from its pedestal ? Litera- 
ture discourses of all life, throughout its depths 
and heights, in all its great variety and range, and 
great literature gives us some sense of this meaning. 
" Don Quixote " would fail to entertain us long if the 
fun began and ended with such exploits as tilting at 
windmills ; but the whole story is wrapped in an 
atmosphere of humour, through which Cervantes 
exhales the experience and philosophy of a man who 
has seen and suffered, meditated and hoped. "Gil 
Bias " is not the mere tale of a valet's adventures; it 
is a study of human nature and society. ' ' Endymion ' ' 
is not a string of images of a brain-sick young poet ; 
it is the searching for a guide amid the ideals of life ; 
it is — if one may use a term so uninspiring for a poem 
of genius — the poet's expression of the data of ethics. 
Synge has given a lively detail of the great fresco 
of literature, and most of us are thankful, but we 



310 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

must not exaggerate the importance even of " The 
Playboy of the Western World/' 

Synge has also written a " Deirdre/' but although 
it is greatly admired in exclusive and refined circles, 
this fact also gives rise to suspicion. Synge had 
never seen Deirdre. He had seen the Playboy ; he 
had listened to the gossiping of colleens round the 
turf fire, and the talk of men drinking their porter 
in little shebeens, and every jotting and flash gave 
us life. But Deirdre ! Deirdre lived thousands of 
years ago. Who was Deirdre ? I cannot tell, although 
it is heresy of the rankest kind not to know. Deirdre 
was an ancient Irish Queen, or goddess, perhaps both. 
She lived along — along — ago. Ireland in her fiercest 
agitations had never heard of Deirdre. To tell the 
whole truth, Ireland was content never to have heard 
of Deirdre, but the literary movement wanted a 
heroine and Deirdre had been so long dead that little 
was known against her family. So M rediscovered 
her. Mr. Yeats wrote a ghosted drama round Deirdre. 
Synge gave us another Deirdre. And now every 
budding Irish dramatist in full sail for the conquest 
of fame must pass the Cape of Deirdre. 

But though respectability is gained by ancient 
burial, yet a certain indistinctness of feature accom- 
panies it, and so it makes too great a strain on the 
affections to ask us to adorn the diaphanous Deirdre. 
The stage may lend an adventitious aid, for it appears 
from the dramatists that Irish Queens were clad in 
something like Hans Breitmann's mermaid, and the 
free movement of comely limbs may compensate even 
for stilted verse. But here we are not lost in the 
" twilight of the Gods," we have found ourselves 
attracted by modern grace ; we are not brooding on 



LITERATURE 311 

" Celtic mysticism ," we are admiring the realities of 
Celtic physique. I have lingered over Synge with 
concern for his renown, especially as in dying he felt 
that he was capable of new and greater flights. 

Of later writers, Seosamh MacCathmhaoil (anglice, 
James Campbell) gives us lyric quality with true Irish 
spirit, Seumas O'Sullivan rare delicacy of nuances 
with yet firm impression in the painting of his images, 
and Francis Ledwidge has caught the songs of the 
birds. Francis Ledwidge is one of the youngest, 
the newest, and one might say the freshest of the 
Irish poets. Lord Dunsany told the story this year 
to the National Literary Society of his discovery : 

About a year and a half ago he received while in 
London a very dirty copy-book, made in Navan, 
and a letter with it, asking him if there was any 
good in the compositions. The copy-book was 
full of poems, many of which were bad, while 
from the rest flashed out the authentic inspira- 
tion of the true poet. At present the writer 
was about twenty-two years of age. He knew 
nothing about technique and far less about 
grammar, but he had the great ideas and concep- 
tions of the poet, and saw the vast figures, the 
giant forces, and elemental powers striving 
amongst the hills. Some of his poems had already 
been published in England and attracted not 
a little attention. His name was Francis Led- 
widge, and most of his poetry dealt with descrip- 
tions of nature in and around his native district 
of Slane, Co. Meath. One of his early poems, 
" Behind the Closed Eye," had appeared in the 
" Saturday Review," and aroused a good deal 



312 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

of controversy in literary circles in London. It 
gave a picture of a simple Irish country village, 
such as no writer had approached since the days 
of Goldsmith. His poetry was mainly drawn 
from the life of the fields, and if he (Lord Dun- 
sany) applied any title to him, he thought he 
might best describe him as " the poet of the 
blackbird." 

The following poem, first published in the " Saturday 
Review " of March 1913, gives a fair idea of Francis 
Ledwidge's charming style. The poem is called 
" To a Linnet in a Cage " : 

"When Spring is in the fields that stained your wing 
And the blue distance is alive with song ; 
And finny quiets of the gabbling spring 

Rock lilies red and long. 
At dewy daybreak I will set you free 
In ferny turnings of the woodbine lane 
Where faint-voiced echoes leave and cross in glee 

The hilly swollen plain. 
In draughty houses you forget your tune, 
The modulator of the changing hours, 
You want the wide air of the moody noon 

And the slanting evening showers — 
So I will lose you, and your song shall fall, 
When morn is white upon my dewy pane, 
Upon my eyelids, and my soul recall 

From worlds of sleeping pain." 

Seosamh MacCathmhaoil calls himself the Moun- 
tainy Singer. That already is good. He aspires to 
sing the joys and the sorrows of the common people ; 
and that is excellent : 

" A bard shall be born 
Of the seed of the folk, 
To break with his singing 
The bond and the yoke." 



LITERATURE 313 

Here is a good verse : "At the Whitening of the 
Dawn " : 

"At the whitening of the dawn, 
As I came o'er the windy water, 
I saw the salmon-fisher's daughter 
LaBarfhionn ni Cholumain, 
Lasarfhionn ni Cholumain, 
Lasarfhionn ni Cholumain, 

Palest lily of the dawn, 
Is Lasarfhionn ni Cholumain." 

Lasarfhionn ni Cholumain — I do not know pre- 
cisely what it means, but I have repeated the words 
a score of times for the delight of the sound ; but 
verse of this kind after all fails to captivate for ever. 

" Twine the mazes thro' and thro' 
Over beach and margent pale ; 
Not a bawn appears in view, 

Not a sail ! 

Round about ! 

In and out ! 
Through the stones and sandy bars, 
To the music of the stars ! 
The asteroidal fire that dances 
Nightly in the northern blue, 
The brightest of the boreal lances 

Dances not so light as you, 
Cliodhna ! 
Dances not so light as you." 

Here is a prettiness of melody, and gleams of fine 
imagery ; but the whole verse is disappointing. It is 
elusive as a passage of Browning without Browning's 
" body " and underlying consistency. The images 
are far-fetched, and unfelt. Once and for all, one 
can give to this, as to so much of our present Irish 
poetry, Newton's definition : A sort of ingenious 
nonsense. And this must be said severely, for in 



314 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

Seosamh MacCathmhaoil, as in many others, the 
genuine spirit is there. 

Seumas O'Sullivan has produced two volumes of 
verse. The last is the Earth-Lover. Seumas O'Sulli- 
van is the most gifted of all in the quality of delicate 
but rich colouring, in the deft strokes, in the wheels 
and turns of the metrical art. But his poems are 
fugitive sketchings. One has the impression of 
coming into an artist's studio and beholding a number 
of glimmering half thought-out brilliant studies, but 
without form, consistency, or intent, or veritable 
sincerity except where dilletantism itself may be 
sincere. These touches are fine : 

" Nor when the mellow Autumn moon 
Hung still in quivering mists of gold 
On hill and meadow, field and fold. 

I will go out and meet the evening hours 

And greet them one by one as friend greets friend, 

Where many a tall poplar summit towers 

On summit, shrines of quietness that send 

Their silence through the blue air like a wreath 

Of sacrificial flame unwavering 

In the deep evening stillness, when no breath 

Sets the faint tendrils floating on light wing 

Over the long dim fields mist-islanded." 

And then we have Padraic Colum, a true poet ; 
that is certain. Yet I have still a tinge of disappoint- 
ment ; disappointment because with real vision, real 
feeling, faculty of fine technique, he has not entirely 
freed himself of models. He gives us pictures re- 
miniscent of Millet, and couched in a form borrowed 
from Walt Whitman. But this was natural to Walt, 
and natural too for the reason that it was only in 
his later days that Walt saw the necessity for the 



LITERATURE 315 

magic of form, that he knew there was something 
wanting in him, " to catch the final lilt of songs." 
Then why should Padraic Colum with his quickly 
apprehensive mind, the lightsome plasticity of the 
Celt, inure himself to these heavy old Dutch endea- 
vourings of Walt ? (In passing I would like to say 
I have a prodigious admiration for Walt.) Yet 
Padraic Colum does this wonderfully well : 

"THE PLOUGHER" 

"Sunset and Silence ! A man : around him earth 
Savage, earth broken ; 
Beside him two horses — a plough ! 

Earth savage, earth broken, the brutes, the dawn- 
man there in the sunset, 

And the Plough that is twin to the Sword, that 
is founder of cities ! 

Brute-tamer, plough-maker, earth-breaker ! 

Can'st hear ? There are ages between us. 
Is it praying you are as you stand there alone 

in the sunset ? " 

This is from one of Padraic Colum 's latest volumes, 
well-named " Wild Earth." There are many notes, 
many moods, many striking pictures. His impressions 
are deeper than the others. He is ardent. He is 
fundamentally sincere. Padraic Colum stands apart 
from most of the others by reason of the volume of 
his work, the variety of the subjects he has touched, 
the more distinct mark of individuality, and also by 
his promise. This last word may be read a little 
dubiously, as implying only insufficiency of actual pro- 
duct, but that is not my intention. Every true poet 
finds within himself not merely the natural stirring 
of his powers, but also, and this especially as his 



316 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

sense of artistry becomes exercised, the possibilities 
of great development. Hitherto, I believe, Colum 
has felt too much the influence of the school under 
whose banner he first sallied forth in quest of fame. 
Something similar might have been said truly of a 
poet so deeply original and true as Keats, for in his 
" Endymion " — surely one of the most marvellous 
poems of all literature — there are obvious faults, 
weaknesses, and mannerisms which were derived 
from his association with Leigh Hunt. He was 
sneered at as belonging to the " Cockney School." 
So in the poems of Colum, in the cast of thought, in 
the set of ideas, and in the forms of expression, one 
seems to detect the influence of the moonshine school. 
Later there is the touch of Walt Whitman. This 
is hopeful, because it marks the effort of the poet 
to escape from lesser associations. His work, admir- 
able as it is, steeped in the very atmosphere of 
poetry — for apart from the expression in words, he 
is a poet — his work may still aspire to find immortal 
qualities. 

Another not less notable for originality is James 
Stephens, though there too we find traces of the 
school of Yeats. Still the genuine fibre is too strong, 
the poet's instinct too determined, his independence, 
confident power, and riancy too exuberant to be 
held within the compass of others. In Stephens there 
is too often marked a rugged strength and graphic 
style which leaves us unprepared for the delight- 
some freedom of his airy flights. Of his prose writ- 
ings, read " The Crock of Gold," the most whimsical 
of fancies since Sterne. 

Here in this rapid review, so brief that many 
spirited authors of signal merit have been left un- 



LITERATURE 317 

mentioned, we have met with great Irish names 
adorning nearly every form of literature. Yet I 
cannot think that the Irish people have yet given the 
full measure of their strength. The reasons may be 
clearer in the next chapter, although the theme itself 
appears at first unconnected with literature. 

Literature does not grow up spontaneously, or 
accidentally. The man of genius may arise here and 
there from origins that seem unfavourable. What- 
ever be extraordinary in this points rather to the 
limitation of our knowledge than to anything 
capricious in the great movement of Nature. Could 
we see truly and deeply enough we would find that 
all here is in order, and that, hard though the saying 
be, natural laws regulate even the appearance of 
genius and the output of literature. The factors 
depend on ten thousand circumstances of the charac- 
ter of the people, the degree of culture, the phases 
of public interest, the whole endeavour, energy, and 
prospects of a race. It will be sufficient to show 
how often in the world's history the appearance of 
great literature has accompanied an outburst of 
national energy in all directions, so that the works 
of the poet mark the bloom time of a people from 
Pindar to Dante, from Camoens to Keats. Litera- 
ture is but an expression of the natural forces, and 
the characteristics of a race will be found there as in 
all other forms of its manifestation. What, there- 
fore, makes me think that the future of Irish litera- 
ture may hold greater glories is precisely that 
hitherto the literature of the Celt has not illustrated 
his genius to the height ; he has not shown there 
evidence adequate of his brilliancy, his noble courage, 
impetuous onslaught, nor even of his ambition. Too 



318 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

often Irish literature has been imitative ; and even 
at the period when the talk was oftenest heard of the 
" Irish Renaissance," it was not easy to buy a repre- 
sentative book of the revival in Dublin, still less to 
find anyone who could quote half-a-dozen charac- 
teristic lines ; while the bookshops of the principal 
streets proudly displayed the wares of third-rate 
English authors whom all had been content to for- 
get in London. Too frequent was there evidence of 
imitation, and the models imitated were bad. 

Consider for a moment the whole range of the 
work of Robert Burns : his poems descriptive of the 
life of the country, immortal poems like " Hallow- 
e'en " ; the poems of satire ; the exuberant racy 
" Tarn O'Shanter," or the irresistible character 
painting of " The Jolly Beggars," the incomparable 
love songs, their life and lyric quality ; the patriotic 
songs breathing the very soul of aspirations ; finally 
the great poems of humanity. 

I have cited Burns for comparison. Perhaps it is 
not fair to the present poets, for Burns himself is not 
to be appreciated by single short poems, still less 
by extracts, but by the whole volume and force, and 
wealth of allusion and evocation, of all his various 
many-spirited verse. But I have chosen him as 
giving us what we have a right to hope for also in 
Ireland, a poetry not the pale reflex of foreign models, 
but breathing, real, vital poetry that leaps with the 
throb of blood, poetry that has a man's force behind 
it, poetry of a patriot's passion, a bard's vision, 
poetry that soars at times with the lark-like carol- 
ling of joyous thought. And all that can be found 
in Ireland. 



CHAPTER XII 

SCIENCE 

Turn to science ! 

That if I had but one monition bearing hope to the 
young man of Ireland, one message that might be 
listened to, that would be my saying : Face realities. 
Enter into veritable knowledge of Nature. 

Let us see in the first place how science stands in 
the world's civilisation. Truly when I cast my eyes 
over the stream of time, and ask what is the valid 
meaning of progress, and when I contrast Greek 
civilisation with our own, I find that we are in many 
things inferior, in one only definitely greater — we are 
superior in the positive results of science. Not in 
the spirit of science. No. That flame burned in 
the souls of Empedocles, of Plato, of Aristotle, of 
Eratosthenes, of Archimedes, no less brightly and 
purely, than ever since in the history of man. But 
in the actual achievement of science, in the massed 
and aggregate product, in the organisations that 
have developed, the million corollaries of science, 
there and there only can we claim greater credit. 

We may speak of the lustre of literature, or of 
the glories of battles by sea or land. Yes, but 
literature is but the adornment of the architecture. 
The beauty of the edifice should arise from its own 
perfect conception. Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, 

319 



320 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

Schiller — these are the great amuseurs, 1 showing to 
our gaze rare worlds of things, varied and picturesque 
worlds, worlds of emotion, passion, airy fancy, delicate 
thought ; displaying inner motives, though it be 
amid the shimmer of poetry, the sparkle of wit; 
delightful, captivating, wonder-filling ; but not the 
great artisans of progress, not the great engineers of 
civilisation's campaign. The modern world begins 
with Galileo. Some three hundred years measures 
the lapse of our escape from the Middle Ages, that 
darkened period when science was lost. Look into 
these things, seriously, and with illumination, 
ye young men ; on you I build my hope. The older 
race is finished. A man is as old as his arteries ; 
a nation is as young as its spirit of enterprise. 

Look, therefore, apart from the catalogue of 
kings, the records of battles, look bravely upon the 
world's progress ; do we not find there a framework, 
an ever- developing structure on which the very 
delicacies of civilisation ultimately rest ? The soul 
of that, the spirit in the ultimate analysis of it all, 
is found in the mind of the thinker. 

Speak to me of imagination. ... It has been one 
of the events of my life, often deviously blown, to 
read " Paradise Lost " a second time, how marvellous 
it seemed ; and yet again how weak, how little com- 
pared with the glories revealed in the analysis of exact 

1 The word, amuseur must be here understood in no low or trivial 
sense, but as something world-wide and deep. Even in this sweeping 
regard I would except, amongst others, Sophocles ; Byron, when the 
whole scope of his work and the intent of his later poems is thought 
of ; Shelley, though, apart from the splendour of some inspired passages, 
his world is narrower, less real and strong ; and particularly Keats, 
whose poetry springs from a higher inspiration, an illumination of the 
spiritual world of man. 



SCIENCE 321 

and patient nature. For therein is Truth. And 
Truth is the imagination of God. 

Even on the lower sphere of National pride, what 
have we to show % Great warriors, yes. Great 
orators, many ; mostly trained on the bad Ciceronian 
model ; rhetoric, rhetoric ; great poets, few ; great 
thinkers, great men of science, very few. Is this the 
fair outcome of Irish genius ? No. Science would 
strengthen our literature. It would give the nation 
a masculine soul. Hitherto our literature is weak. 
Too often we have been parsing Celt as the feminine 
for Saxon. Yet the Celt is adapted to science — the 
eager spirit, the vivid intelligence, the alert and 
plastic mind — all these qualities tell in science. 

Literature, yes even literature, should be a discourse 
of life, valuable only according to the breadth of 
view, the strength of the beam of insight. It should 
be as true as the Differential Calculus. Without 
this, why gossip of Othello and his wife, or the Play- 
boy of the Western World, except indeed to spend 
an idle hour ? And why dull that by affectation ? 

Science is so great that salvation lies that way ; 
build on the strong nutriment of science, rather than 
on what we have known as the stimulus of literature. 
This nation will not be great — not as future greatness 
will rank — till the battle of Waterloo pales iu import- 
ance before the experiments of Schwann ; till the 
monster European war is seen to be a less thing in 
the great march than the calculus of Maxwell aiding 
Faraday, finding an outcome in Hertz, all tending 
to indicate to us the connection between electricity 
and light. Look for a moment on the prodigious 
material consequences that have sprung from the 
thinker's mind, X-rays and wireless telegraphy are 
21 



322 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

but incidents of that conquest, and on the threshold 
of discovery we dimly see the world of thousand 
wonders looming far. 

The nation will be educated when the elite of the 
young men will find in Hamilton's " Quarternions " a 
joy such as the musician feels in the roll and sweep 
of a passage of Bach. Who was Hamilton ? William 
Rowan Hamilton was that among the greatest of all 
men, a man with a mind. What adventures in the 
world can equal those of the intellects that traced for 
us the nature of heat — that story embellished with 
the names of Huyghens, Lavoisier, Rumford, Davy, 
Laplace, Fourier, Mayer, Joule, Helmholtz, and 
Hertz ? 

And of chemistry ? What work there for a mascu- 
line mind of order, of lucidity, of comprehensiveness, 
of grasp ! 

And in biology ? What soul of apprehension fails 
to find in Darwin not teaching merely but the joy 
of snatching a veil that hid Nature ? What wizardy 
equals the experiments of Loeb and Delage ? 

And these marvels are strewn around us ! These 
marvels furnishing us with inexpressible delight in 
themselves, and yet again bearing fruit in practical 
domains in which our very daily lives are cast, sound- 
ing finally in the prosperity and strength and endur- 
ing greatness of the nation itself. 

I will refrain for the moment of speaking of other 
things, of the deep ethical interest of science, of the 
magical uplifting of its spirit. This is but an exordium, 
a few significant words. I will venture later to pierce 
to the core of things, to blazon this message in letters 
of light. 

A chapter on Irish science need but be short. That 



SCIENCE 323 

is a tragedy. In the whole range of Irish history 
there is no event, no calamity, which more than this 
should give us serious thought. The science of a 
nation is not merely the measure of its material 
progress, it is also the standard of manhood. 

Certainly Irish names have figured here and there 
in the records of intellectual achievement, but these 
names are few as compared with those distinguished 
in other fields or in regard to the total capacity of 
the people. In chemistry we can point to the great 
work of Boyle, and in this case the admiration due 
to his accomplishments in science is increased in 
reading the account of his methods, his experiments, 
his aspirations. We find here the true cast of mind 
of the philosopher, thoughtful, enquiring, desirous 
of knowing the reality, ingenious in devising means of 
testing even with simple apparatus, and endeavouring 
to relate one field of knowledge to another. His name 
is immortalised in Boyle's Law (though called 
Mariotte's Law in France), viz., that at constant tem- 
perature the pressure of a gas bears an inverse ratio 
to the volume. 

About the same period Molyneux, the Irish friend 
of Locke, was asking shrewd questions in philosophy 
and psychology, but his actual researches are not 
considerable. Another who is claimed as Irish is 
Bishop Berkeley, whose spirit flashed a lucid beam 
here and there amid extravagance of abundant ideas. 
Berkeley was born in Ireland, but his father had 
recently come from England. He was educated in 
Ireland, but, apart from his own original genius, he 
derived directly from Locke and from Newton. 

In the domain of mathematics, which Gauss with 
fine understanding called the queen of the sciences, 



324 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

it is gratifying to meet with an Irish name now and 
then, but discouraging to find that, the evidence 
of capacity having been given, so few representatives 
have struck determinedly into this field of enchant- 
ment. 

I was once highly interested to find the name of 
d'Arcy quoted by a brilliant German mathematician 
in an historical and critical account of the Theory 
of Least Action. 1 I looked a little more closely into 
the matter. The story is worth referring to, for it 
mingles with the name of d'Arcy those of men no 
less familiar than Frederick the Great and Voltaire. 

Frederick the Great had invited to Berlin the cele- 
brated French physicist and mathematician, Mauper- 
tuis, and had made him President of the Berlin 
Academy. Maupertuis had done excellent work, 
although his scientific attainments were hardly above 
mediocrity. On the other hand he was pompous and 
pretentious. The type has been reproduced a 
hundred times in the history of every civilised country, 
the pompous man-in-office putting forth theses marked 
by no depth of thought but over-riding the genera- 
tion of thinkers by the sheer weight of authority. 

Maupertuis had as the result of manipulating 
mathematical formulae come to the conclusion that he 
had discovered a new law of the universe, the principle 
of Least Action, which according to his view proved 
that in Nature the most economical means were 
employed in producing a mechanical result, and that 
therefore the justice and glory of the Deity were at 
length demonstrated with rigour. The reality, how- 
ever, was this, that Maupertuis had misunderstood his 

1 The work referred to ia A. Mayer's " Geschichte des Prinzips der 
Kleinsten Aktion," Leipzig, 1877. 



SCIENCE 325 

own formulae. A dispute as to priority of this great 
discovery arose. Voltaire, who detested Maupertuis 
for his arrogance, published a pamphlet, "Docteur 
Akakia, medecin du pape," in which he ridiculed 
Maupertuis without mercy. x Frederick was outraged, 
perhaps not for the sake of the Deity, nor for the 
consideration of science, still less for Maupertuis, 
but that his own august state should be aimed at in 
a satire which derided one whom he had exalted. 

Frederick called in the authority of Euler, and 
though that great mathematician could not have 
failed to see the insufficiency of Maupertuis and the 
falsity of his reasoning, he covered him as far as he 
could by his own authority. The question had 
attracted much interest in France, and Chevalier 
d'Arcy, then a French officer of artillery, entered the 
lists. D'Arcy pursued the reasoning of Maupertuis 
a little further and showed that, according to the 
interpretation of the formulae, Nature might in one 
set of circumstances be the most parsimonious 
manager, and in another the most reckless spendthrift, 
of energy. To those who believe that a mathe- 
matician must necessarily be barren of soul, I would 
recommend the reading of the two memoirs on Least 
Action published by d'Arcy, for together with 
rigorous demonstration of the absurdity of the theory 
of Maupertuis they show the weapon of ironical wit 
wielded with elegance. 2 Chevalier d'Arcy was of 
Irish origin, having been born in Calway, and I have 

1 See also Voltaire's " Micromegas." 

2 Chevalier d'Arcy's papers will be found in the Memo ires de 1' Aca- 
demic de Paris, 1749-1752. The Theory of Least Action has since 
been investigated by Lagrange, Hamilton, Jacobi, Helmholtz, Hertz, 
Mach, Holder, amongst others. The most recent study is that of 
Mr. Philip E. B. Jourdain : The Principle of Least Action. 



326 IRELAND : VITAL HOUE 

dwelt on his name because I believe the talents he 
displayed are those one would expect to find in Irish 
intellect. 

In the same field of mathematics I have met with 
names typically Celtic — O'Brien, Casey, MacCullagh, 
for example — but the most illustrious of all, William 
Rowan Hamilton, claims another descent. 1 

On a bridge in Dublin Hamilton carved with his 
knife the symbols i 2 = j 2 = k 2 = ijk = — 1, and these 
are the signs of one of the highest flights of the human 
mind, for they indicate the completion of the Qua- 
ternion system. The germinating idea in Quaternions 
is to reduce the study of complex spatial relations, as 
for instance of lines of force, to its simplest form by 
the help of algebraic methods. Hamilton had for 
years been exercising his mind on the subject when 
one day, October 16, 1843, walking with his wife 
along the Royal Canal near Brougham Bridge, he 
felt the mental flash which showed him the clue to 
the problem. Thereupon he carved the symbols on 
the bridge. Hamilton is well known for other work 
in mathematics, especially for his presentation of 
the fundamental formulae of mechanics, which he 
exhibited in elegant form after Lagrange and, later, 
Poisson had brilliantly led the way. 

In reading Euler's "Introductio in Analysin 
infinitorum," I met with the name of one whom the 
great mathematician speaks of as Irish, Lord Brounc- 
ker, but neither he nor Salmon, nor Stokes, nor 
Tyndall, nor Thomson, known later as Lord Kelvin, 
though their wit was enlivened no doubt by Irish 
blood, showed any sympathy with Nationalist, that 

1 The family name of Blood, of County Clare, appears, however, in 
his maternal ancestry. 



SCIENCE 327 

is to say, in the main, Celtic aspirations. 1 In tra- 
versing the whole range of science I have met with 
the name of an Irishman highly distinguished now 
and then — Murphy more than once, Fitzgerald, 
mentioned by Hertz in his " Untersuchung iiber die 
Ausbreitung der elektrischen Kraft," Sir Almroth 
Wright, who is, I believe, half Irish, Signor Marconi, 
whose mother, I am told, was Irish, and others of 
less note. But, after all, even in such subjects as 
Celtic philology, or the history of Ireland studied 
upon scientific principles, the record is meagre in 
the extreme. What is the cause ? It may be said 
at once that the political turmoil which the struggle 
for autonomy has produced has in regard to science 
been detrimental in two ways, firstly, by producing 
conditions of disturbance unfavourable to the pro- 
secution of scientific studies, and secondly, by divert- 
ing the keenest intellects into political activities. 

Neither of these causes, however, offers a satis- 
factory explanation. It has been proved again and 
again that the time of the greatest national effer- 
vescence in political adventure, whether by way of 
defence or expansion, has been the era of the highest 
intellectual production. The scientific genius of the 
French never burned more brightly than in that 
period which embraced the Revolution and the early 
days of the Empire. That was the time, Professor 
Tait said, though more emphatically than truly, 
when the French were giants and the rest of the 
world pigmies. 

We must look a little deeper. Ireland is com- 

1 Lord Brouncker was the first President of the Koyal Society. 
His title was Irish, and his maternal grandfather was Irish, but other- 
wise Brouncker had no particular connection with Ireland, 



328 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

paratively a small country and a poor country. But 
the scientific output of certain countries, either small 
in extent or sparsely populated, has been consider- 
able — let Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Serbia, and 
Norway attest it. The deficiency of schools has 
hitherto been a great obstacle, and it has happened 
that by virtue of religious obstacles and political 
prejudices, the great University, Trinity College, has 
been virtually closed to Catholic Nationalists. Here 
again we meet with that element which has modified 
the whole tenour of Irish history — the impress of 
the religious idea upon the character of the energies, 
the endeavours, and the aspirations of the people. 

Unfortunately the history of the Catholic Church 
has shown that it is averse to progress in scientific 
education, scientific research, and scientific develop- 
ment. This will perhaps be vehemently denied, but 
I ask that the denial should not be the expression 
merely of that most stupid of all prejudices, the blind 
clinging to a shibboleth in a scientific argument ; we 
are all entitled to look at this matter fairly and 
squarely, without prejudice or warping, but simply 
to behold matters in a light as clear as we can com- 
mand. Viewed in this way the history of the Church 
in its relation to science, and in its treatment of men 
of scientific genius, has exhibited a tyranny only 
paralleled by its ignorance. 

Giordano Bruno burnt at the stake, Galileo im- 
prisoned, compelled to renounce his intellectual 
labours and to deny his greatest discoveries, Des- 
cartes forced to seek seclusion, Vesalius persecuted 
and hounded to his death, the works of Eustachius 
hidden for many generations, the projects of Columbus 
derided and denounced — these are but the salient 



SCIENCE 329 

facts that leap to light at the first view of history. 
These facts are denied, or explained, by apologists. 
It may be even pointed out that Roger Bacon was 
a friar, and Copernicus a monk, that Descartes and 
Kepler were devout believers, and that the Popes 
and high dignitaries of the Church have encouraged 
learning. Roger Bacon was himself persecuted ; 
and the fact that Copernicus escaped has no signifi- 
cance when we remember that his book was only 
finished in time to be put in his dying hands. 

What seems to be important is not, moreover, the 
enlightened patronage of individuals, but the con- 
stant attitude of the Church towards research, to- 
wards all that has led to an illuminated view of the 
world and of natural laws, towards science and 
particularly towards that science whose task it has 
been to scrutinise the validity of theories of the 
cosmos, and the foundations of principles of ethics. 
Much has been written of late to show that no con- 
flict exists, or can exist, between science and religion. 
If it be so then surely all the more it behoves the 
Church to encourage, to foster, to hold on high, the 
works of science. Every enduring religion must be 
built on eternal truths, and since it is the business 
of science simply to discover the truth in regard to 
phenomenon, those who believe that no conflict can 
exist should be the first to advance the march of 
science, to perfect its methods, and to spread its 
results. To hesitate in this is to show a want of 
faith. What sincere believer, I ask, can be afraid 
to read together Genesis and the " Origin of Species " ? 
And what sincere Darwinist ? 

It is in the century-long attitude of the Church to- 
wards science that one must seek the explanation of 



330 IEELAND : VITAL HOUE 

the poor achievement of Irishmen in that domain. 
Science requires schools, science requires universities, 
science requires laboratories ; yet after all, science 
is aided when, throughout all ranks, a spirit is 
prevalent that esteems science and appreciates its 
products. 

The failure of Trinity College to attract Nationalist 
students has been met by the establishment of the 
National University ; but this solution of the diffi- 
culty is not the happiest imaginable. It virtually 
amounts to setting up a Catholic University in rivalry 
with a Protestant University, and once more bring- 
ing into conflict those warring principles in Irish 
life. But, once again, there is not a Catholic way 
and a Protestant way of solving quadratic equations, 
or even of transforming elliptic functions, nor of 
estimating the relative numbers of white and red 
blood corpuscles, nor of obtaining new synthetic 
products of arsenic. It may be said, in fact, I have 
heard it said, that these subjects should be taught 
in a Catholic atmosphere ; that is to say, that the 
student would run great danger if, in the midst of an 
exposition of a theorem of Lagrange or of Jacobi, 
some casual remark might be let fall that would 
unsettle his faith. 

But for the love of Heaven itself, what have we 
here arrived at ? Is the faith of these Catholic youths 
— and I have no doubt the same remarks apply to 
Protestants — is their faith so frail, their mental and 
moral constitution so delicate, that all through their 
lives and particularly at the period of their most 
lively vigour, they must be treated as mental degener- 
ates and moral invalids ? Is this the way to make 
a Nation ? Is this the way to strengthen the intel- 



SCIENCE 331 

lectual sinews, and to give sanity and health to the 
moral fibre, of that elite which must move to the 
front in shaping the great destinies of a race ? 

Certainly the only satisfactory solution has now 
become impossible, so that we must do the next 
best thing. A remedy might be found if in addition 
to these Universities we founded still another which 
should hold towards them the same relation as they 
to the preparatory colleges. Does this proposal sur- 
prise you ? Then that surprise is a confession of 
want of faith in the Irish, an acceptance of the per- 
petual dependence of the race. 

We should imitate the example of the great Uni- 
versities of Paris and Berlin. In both these centres 
of science I have had occasion to observe that a 
student who, educated elsewhere, would remain a 
third-rate man, might be trained, fostered, developed, 
till he had reached any rank that cultivated talent, 
as distinct from genius, might attain. 

There should particularly be held up before the eyes 
of all Irish students the supreme greatness of science. 
It would be the salvation of the country if for this 
high ideal they became inspired by a noble fire and 
enthusiasm such as seized upon Florentine students, 
students all over Europe, for the glorious fruits of 
the Renaissance. The pith and kernel of all that 
research was but the germ of what in its development 
we know as modern science, that most fascinating, 
that most enchanted, that most powerful of all the 
products that the genius of man has known. Science, 
science, science, should be the longing and the cry, 
the intimate watchword of the soul of intellectual 
Young Ireland. 

It would be possible to trace out the development 



332 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

of science and its practical results so as to show 
that the form of civilisation has depended on that 
development. Science is thus seen to be the woof 
of civilisation, no matter in what varied designs and 
colours the pattern may be woven in. Those who 
care to read history in this light will discern, perhaps 
not without surprise, how great was the achievement 
of the Greeks during a period of intellectual activity 
which extended over five hundred years, but which 
shows the highest achievements within a space of 
less than two centuries, from the days of Hippocrates 
to those of Eratosthenes. Within these limits of 
time are included also the labours of Empedocles, 
of Plato, of Aristotle, and of Archimedes. 

There are few of the cardinal notions of science — 
the atomic theory, originally expressed by Democritus, 
the theory of Natural Selection, well understood by 
Empedocles, the real spirit of science as exemplified 
by Aristotle, the foundation of modern mechanics 
admirably exhibited by Archimedes, the true con- 
ception of the form of the earth and its astronomical 
relations, as set forth by Eratosthenes — there are 
then few fundamental principles as known to 
modern science which had not been considered by 
the Greeks. For the most part, however, their 
methods were too purely speculative, not sufficiently 
experimental ; they looked on mechanical machines 
with no sufficient regard for their vast possibilities, 
and as a consequence of this attitude they had 
advanced but little in the invention of scientific 
instruments. The Greek civilisation was trampled 
on by the power of Rome, by the subsequent incursions 
of the Barbarians, and it was at length almost for- 
gotten during that thousand years of intellectual 



SCIENCE 333 

night when over the minds of men the Church held 
undisputed sway. 

From out of the obscurity of the Middle Ages a 
few names flash out like beacons — Roger Bacon, 
Raymond Lulli, who in the thirteenth century had 
gained from the Arabs the teachings which they in 
turn had remotely derived from the old Greek sources. 
One hundred years later we find the glimmerings of 
the dawn, with Toscanelli and Copernicus who had 
accepted the ideas of Eratosthenes ; and Galileo who 
descended intellectually direct from Archimedes. 

In modern times we have found as the material 
evidence of our progress — but all nevertheless depend- 
ing on the related research of science — the steam 
engine, with its products, the railway locomotive 
and the steamship ; the electric telegraph, with all 
its developments in the form of telephone and wire- 
less ; the telescope, the microscope ; the airships and 
aeroplanes ; and thousand other appliances. 

Underlying these inventions are the laws of 
mechanics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of optics, 
the laws of radiant action in all forms, in as far as 
science has exposed them to view. And underlying 
the exposition of mechanics is the development of 
mathematics. Thus we find that immense material 
results have followed upon the flash of insight of 
Descartes which led to the introduction of his co- 
ordinates in mathematical investigation, and per- 
mitted the application to geometry of the apparatus 
of algebra. 

It is not here the place to trace further the depen- 
dence of material progress upon science, but, once 
and for all be it said, that no discovery in any realm 
of science can remain barren of definite results even 



334 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

in the concrete world of affairs; the most abstruse 
speculations of a Gauss or a Galois, be they valid, 
are destined yet to sound in the material evidence 
of vast accomplishment. The genius of the thinker 
moves the world. 

But this material evidence when translated into 
facts of everyday life means vast shipping enterprises, 
manufactures of machines, or of delicate scientific 
instruments ; it means the great economy of means, 
and thence the great wealth derived from chemical 
processes ; it means the highest return of agricultural 
produce. 

In all this shall Ireland stand beyond the pale ? 
Shall she be for ever dependent on the thought of 
others, on the machinery of others, on the instru- 
ments of civilisation of others, a hewer of wood and 
drawer of water in the family of the nations, for ever ? 

A great and legitimate ambition is here opened 
out, and yet so clouded has become our thought 
precisely from the lack of science, that I feel that it 
has required even more than sincerity to express it. 
Be that as it may, I have now at length spoken 
determinedly on this matter ; and reviewing all 
that has linked me to the Irish cause I would 
rather that all else were forgotten if but this were 
remembered, that I believed that the greatest cry 
that I could utter to Ireland was : Believe in Science. 
Hold to Science. Build on Science. In the centre 
of things set Science. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ULSTER 

To write a book on Ireland without especial reference 
to Ulster ' might seem like playing Hamlet with the 
prince, yet I had almost succeeded in this feat. The 
truth is that in various chapters we encounter Ulster 
again and again, and nearly all that it is necessary 
to say of Ulster may be found in those references. 

Here and there I may have laughed at Ulster 
foibles, but nothing is further from my intention 
than to disparage Ulster men ; the qualities of the 
Northerners are indispensable for the building up of 
the new Ireland. 

At the same time even for their chastening and 
betterment one is bound to take their own estimate 
of themselves with a grain of salt. That estimate 
might be summarised thus : A people chosen by God 
to live in a somewhat disagreeable climate, and to 
set the world an example of magnificent trade and 
prosperity, vociferous loyalty (with an occasional 
menace in that vociferation), high character and 
large-mindedness, linked with stubbornly unprogres- 
sive ideas, wide tolerance (except to those whose 
creeds are not in accord with their own), and in public 
affairs, efficiency and fair play, in as far as consistent 
with the Divine Right of Protestant Ascendancy to 

1 I use the term Ulster, often where I should say North East Ulster, 
partly for brevity, partly to show good-will. 

335 



336 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

monopolise the lucrative offices. A hard-headed, 
determined, energetic people, the Belfast citizens, 
proud of their trade, proud of their education, proud 
of their intellect, proud of their children's superiority, 
though very apprehensive of open competition with 
the lively urchins of the South. 

Some critics, not unsympathetic, as, for instance, 
Mr. Harold Begbie, say that Belfast men are too hard, 
and they describe the cruel faces one meets in Belfast 
streets. 1 Others, as for instance, Mr. John G. 
Ervine, a Protestant native of Belfast, castigate the 
whole pride of trade, and point out that the amassing 
of fortunes is parallel with, if not actually founded 
upon, the pinched and pallid faces, the hopeless 
outlook, the phthisis-stricken homes of thousands 
of sweated workers in Belfast slums. Others more 
keenly analytical still have traced the rise of Belfast 
to causes partly historical, such as by energetic 
interference of the Government in favour of Belfast 
and against competitors, partly physical, over which 
the most intelligent captain of industry in the locality 
had no control. 2 

1 Mr. Harold Begbie in " The Lady Next Door," describing a Bel- 
fast street, says : 

The faces of passers-by are terrible. They are either fierce, 

hard, cruel, and embittered, or they are sad, wretched, hopeless, 

and despairing, and among the young people it is rare to see 

a big, well-built, healthy specimen of humanity. 

Mr. F. Frankfort Moore, who is, I believe, a Belfast Protestant, 

gives in his novel " The Ulsterman," an appreciative study but with 

many passages of mordant satire. 

2 In regard to the rise of Belfast compare Cunningham, " English 
Industry and Commerce," vol. ii ; Miss Murray, " Commercial Re- 
lations," Chapter VII. ; J. M. Robertson, " Trade and Tariffs " ; 
Erskine Childers, " Framework of Home Rule." The question is dealt 
with in able fashion and witty style by Prof. T. M. Kettle in the 
" English Review " of 1914 



ULSTER 337 

Let us grant all this, still the fact stands out 
clearly enough that the Belfast people had the enter- 
prise to seize their opportunities, that they have 
a magnificent commercial record, that leanings to 
culture are shown even in that wistful, pathetic hope 
which made them dub their city the Athens of the 
North, and that their arrogance is not unilluminated 
by stray beams of modesty, as, for instance, when 
they went to the South for a leader. 

That leader has achieved renown, as well as a 
success which at one time seemed to be complete, 
but which now appears only tentative. Certainly, 
even though an opponent, I cannot withhold admira- 
tion for the manner in which Sir Edward Carson has 
played a difficult role. He has been bold, astute, 
resourceful, and capable. At one period, I confess, 
I saw nothing before him but destruction ; but that 
was at a time when I had not suspected the weakness 
which the Front Bench hid behind its manner of 
impressive dignity and righteousness. 

The Ulster leader not only enrolled, drilled, and 
equipped troops in the light of day — with a few 
midnight excursions and alarums, for there is some- 
thing of the Playboy of the Northern World even in 
Sir Edward — but, and this was his real strength, he 
mobilised public opinion in the " ruling classes," and 
brought to bear on the question the invisible artillery 
of those higher circles which exercise their undue 
influence on our greatest Liberal parvenus. At one 
time I scouted the suggestion of civil war ; it did not 
seem to me consonant with sanity and the twentieth 
century. But when I beheld the Government looking 
helpless at ten thousand Covenanters, and compelled 
even by their weakness to permit the arming of the 
22 



338 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

Nationalist Volunteers, this aspect of the question 
seemed to change. Moreover, of late the twentieth 
century has given us no guarantee against political 
insanity. Civil War became an alternative in Ire- 
land ; it is still at least a possibility. 

I can conceive of few happenings more abominable 
and disastrous to Ireland than that of Civil War. It 
would I think be especially destructive of Nationa- 
list hopes. Civil War in Ireland could not leave 
England indifferent ; on the contrary, it would 
arouse feelings hardly less intense than those pre- 
vailing in Ireland itself. No matter what might be 
the immediate origin of the conflict, no matter what 
side might claim the formal rights for the moment, 
yet when once the struggle had developed it would 
be almost inevitable that England should declare in 
favour of Ulster. 

Civil War in Ireland would divide Ireland sharply 
into two camps ; and soon, clearly seen amid minor 
differences, the banners of Catholicism and Protes- 
tantism would wave aloft, and Ireland would be 
plunged into a miserable aftermath of the Williamite 
wars. In that case could any patriotic and en- 
lightened Nationalist, Catholic though he be, hope 
— if that were possible — for the unrestrained domin- 
ance of Rome in Ireland and the obliteration of the 
Protestant party ? And could any British Prime 
Minister tolerate such a. conclusion ? We need not 
wait for an answer. 

Civil War would be calamitous to all in Ireland. 
Yet the Ulster men still hold that threat over our 
heads, and Ireland has still a devious and dangerous 
path to traverse before Home Rule becomes de- 
finitely established. Is there then no better solution, 



ULSTER 339 

practicable, equitable ? I believe there is. Let us 
examine the main features of the Ulster revendica- 
tions. They fear religious oppression, unworthy 
appointments, unfair taxation ; and they still, tacitly 
or otherwise, claim Ascendancy. 

With regard to the first, although it seems to me 
their fears are absurdly exaggerated, I think that 
every possible " safeguard " should be given them. 
With reference to partisan appointments, I think 
that the introduction of a system of running politics 
on the basis of a gigantic series of " deals " with the 
spoils for the victors— that system which is a blight 
even in stronger countries than Ireland — would 
there be a moral plague. Yet it would be possible 
to deal with this matter in such a way as at least to 
keep the evil within bounds. I will not go so far 
as to suggest the machinery by which any of these 
securities might be attained, that would lead to 
detail which would be here out of place. Similarly 
in regard to taxation there would be no insurmount- 
able difficulty in providing such forms and instru- 
ments of Government as to eliminate unfair measures. 

That being so mere Ascendancy must go. Even 
Belfast men must learn to take their place in the 
national life on the same terms as ordinary mortals ; 
they must see that there is no divine dispensation 
which makes arrogance and crude ideas of the cosmos 
the golden keys to superior wisdom or even to the 
control of the loaves and fishes. 

Ulstermen are not only Irishmen, they are intensely 
patriotic Irishmen ; I do not believe that as a body 
they desire to be cut asunder from the rest of Ire- 
land. To repeat the words of Parnell, who was a 
far-sighted statesman, Ireland cannot afford to lose 



340 IRELAND: VITAL HOUR 

a single one of her sons. The strong qualities of the 
men of the North, their activity, their purpose, their 
grit, and aptitude for great enterprises — these find 
not their opponents but their complements in the 
fire, the dash, the vim, and intelligence of the South. 
To separate them would be disaster ; to join them 
in patriotic co-operation would be to lay the founda- 
tions of an Ireland stronger, more hopeful, more 
progressive, aspiring, and happy than has yet been 
known in the battle-worn but ever yearning spirit of 
Erin. 



CHAPTER XIV 

CONCLUSIONS 

History is not the story of casual happenings. 
History, truly told, is the account of causal processes. 
It may be permitted to dwell for a moment on the 
topic. In ordinary life we have a sentiment of the 
accidental character of the events that produce joy 
or sorrow in our lives. The wider our outlook, the 
deeper the view, the more the sentiment of the acci- 
dental tends to disappear : Two men are crossing 
a road in front of a bolting horse — one of the men is 
keen in all his senses, especially sight and hearing ; 
he is active and strong. The other is deaf, half- 
blind, and lame. The first escapes, the second is 
killed. But here is, properly speaking, no accident. 
Two men are in the trenches waiting for the enemy. 
The weather is inclement, the trenches are damp. 
One man is robust ; he has been brought up on oat- 
meal, he has been a shepherd in the Highlands. 
The other is a narrow-chested delicate man, addicted 
to stimulants. The first laughs at the discomfiture ; 
the second dies of pneumonia. Here again is no 
accident. 

It is sufficient, no doubt, to have given these in- 
dications. In the course of the individual life, if 
we can properly estimate a man's physical character- 
istics, his mental capacity, and moral qualities, and 

341 



342 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

then if we know his environment, we may forecast 
the shaping of his career. If we are unable to speak 
more precisely, that is because of the limitations of 
our knowledge and insight, and the intricacy of the 
causes and effects, not in the want of consecutiveness 
and cogency in the causes and effects themselves. 

So at large with a nation. Again and again I have 
heard Irishmen well versed in history, despondent 
about some current affair, say, there is an ill-luck 
hanging over the country ! Too often it has ap- 
peared so in the past ; but it is our duty to face this 
matter resolutely, and to trace out the cause of the 
failure, even though at length we may be compelled 
to say that the defect has been lodged in ourselves. 
If we take this attitude we have found the beginning 
of the solution. When we look at the physique of 
the Irish people, we find a race capable of produc- 
ing, as it has done, some of the finest specimens of 
physical excellence. If anyone doubts this let him 
take up a book of athletic records ; he may be sur- 
prised to find how many of the world's greatest 
feats have been achieved by those of the Irish race. 
On the other hand there is far too much preventible 
disease in the country, and consumption, which is 
in the popular mind usually associated with a meagre 
physical build, shows a high death-rate in Ireland. 

The moral — using the term moral in its widest 
range to mean some real virtue of energy and life — 
the moral characteristics of the people sparkle in the 
stories of Ireland, and in the gravest pages of history. 
We find perpetually recurring the tales of dauntless 
courage, enterprise, and dash ; a sense of easy con- 
fidence and gaiety in the midst of danger that has 
sometimes been mistaken for levity ; and in action 



CONCLUSIONS 343 

a vehement fire that has astonished beholders in 
every part of the world. The temperament of the 
people is eager, hopeful, ambitious, though at times 
too easily cast down, not always persistent enough 
and coolly determined. This gives to the story of 
Ireland activity, restlessness, and frequent disap- 
pointment. 

The mental quality is good, there is no lack there 
of intelligence, quickness, bright apprehensiveness, 
tenacity of memory ; there has been in evidence 
hitherto less of that deeper but more powerful 
organised movement of the mind which gives the 
impression of high intellect. That is a matter of 
training ; and it is the truest patriotism to look 
steadily to the ultimate highest training of the elite 
of the race. 

The restlessness of Ireland, the strange record of 
the race, oppressed in its native home, flashing out 
in brilliancy and reaching high positions in every 
country of Europe and America, all this has appealed 
to the sympathies of many. It points to the fact 
that hitherto it has not been possible for Nationalist 
Irishmen to find a fair field and full scope in Ireland 
itself. That condition must be remedied. 

There must be an intensive culture of character 
and achievement in Ireland. Ireland must be deve- 
loped from within. Here we strike upon the Sinn 
Fein doctrine ; but apart from expressions of narrow- 
ness, prejudice, and hate, the inward vitalising spirit 
of that movement seems to me not merely acceptable, 
but full of promise. At the same time Irishmen 
must be bold. You tell me they are bold ; yes, in 
all physical prowess ; but they must be as bold 
morally and mentally as on the field of battle. We 



344 IEELAND : VITAL HOUR 

must be bold enough not only to meet the outward 
enemy but to face the facile hypocrisies of our own 
minds, to drill ourselves to the hard contact of 
realities in the mental and moral world, and to 
appreciate in all things the keen atmosphere of truth. 

We must not live too much in the past, nor cling 
necessarily to every tradition because it has been 
dubbed Celtic. We must shatter some of our illu- 
sions, and refuse to be led along by shibboleths. 

It is not generally popular to preach the exorcism 
of faults, and these remarks, moreover, may seem 
too vague to be useful ; but in the course of Ireland's 
progress day by day they will find abundant applica- 
tion. 

Above all we must look forward. I believe, or 
hope I believe, that the greater glories of Ireland are 
yet to come, and that the gage and earnest of these 
is to be found in the development from within of 
the best of Ireland's qualities — the lively energy, the 
dauntless on-moving assailant spirit, directed to high 
purpose, sincerely bent to steady up-building of the 
nation, and animated by the faith in the triumph 
yet to come. 



CHAPTEE XV 

ENVOI 

A discourse on Ireland should reach a practical 
conclusion ; accordingly here are set down certain 
provisions, necessary, it seems to me, for the re- 
modelling of the political and social life of the 
country. 

In order to fix the ideas these provisions are pre- 
sented in bare outline, thus losing somewhat in the 
sense of eventual adaptability but gaining in definite 
form : 

(1) The integrity of Ireland. 

No solution involving a permanent partition 
of Ireland seems feasible. The two portions of 
Ireland, in the event of political separation, 
would be like hostile states thrown unavoidably 
together but ranged under banners of that worst 
kind of antagonism — religious rivalry. 

(2) Adequate provisions that complete re- 
ligious freedom shall prevail not only in Ulster 
but in the rest of Ireland. 

(3) Elimination of undue clerical control in 
public affairs. 

(4) Special provisions in regard to appoint- 
ments to offices of state. 

(5) Special provisions with respect to the 
incidence of taxation, so that no unfair treat- 

345 



346 IRELAND : VITAL HOUR 

ment should be meted out to Ulster, nor indeed 
to any part of Ireland. 

(6) Gradual lessening in activity of rival 
organisations founded on distinctions, whether 
political or religious, which separate citizens of 
the same community. 

(7) Direct encouragement of trade on lines 
indicated in the chapter on " Industrial Develop- 
ment." 

(8) There must be a great Amnesty, a forget- 
ting of old feuds and hatreds. All enlightened 
Irishmen must hail a new vivifying spirit of 
good fellowship and co-operation, and the re- 
lease of national energy in serious upbuilding 
work. 

(9) New ideas of Education. Overhauling of 
the whole system of education, so as to make it 
at once an instrument of practical life, as well 
as a means of wider culture. Education should 
be the informing principle of the whole national 
activity. The higher education should especially 
be fostered. There should be established a 
superior University, with special encouragement 
of original work, at which graduates of the 
existing universities might be further trained 
for State services. The models of the Ecole 
Normale and the Ecole Polytechnique of France 
should be here kept in view. 

(10) Science should play a dominant part in 
education, and eventually in the practical life 
of the nation, vastly more important than has 
yet been contemplated. 

(11) In literature, a more masculine note ; less 
of the minor key, less even of passion ; a litera- 



ENVOI 347 

ture invoking more determinedly the qualities 
of intellect ; a literature of strength — fortitude, 
fortitude, above all, mental fortitude. 

(12) The path must be kept clear for all 
future strengthening development. 



APPENDIX 

AGRICULTURAL CENSUS 





Population. 


Valuation. 


Area 
Acres. 


Tillage 
Acres. 


Holdings. 




Lands. 


Houses. 


Bought 
out. 


Ten- 
anted. 


Leinster . 
Munster . 
Ulster 
Connaught 


1,160,328 

1,033,085 

1,598,303 

609,966 


£ 

2,836,858 
2,461,122 
2,564,025 
1,190,767 


£ 

2,348,946 

1,029,900 

2,988,219 

271,813 


4,844,969 
5,955,027 
5,322,534 
4,228,195 


1,265,358 

1,287,169 

1,598,303 

710,394 


76,620 

85,046 

123,593 

65,535 


57,857 
56,994 
80,464 
59,787 


Ireland 


4,381,951 


9,052,772 


6,638,878 


20,350,725 


4,861,224 


350,794 


255,102 





0-1. 


1-5. 


Holdings according to acreage. 
5-15. 15-30. 30-50. 
Number. 


50-100. Over 100. 


Leinster . 
Munster . 
Ulster 
Connaught 


29,660 

26,953 

22,018 

7,013 


17,405 
12,472 
20,006 
12,053 


24,990 
19,624 
62,652 
46,299 


22,064 
24,508 
53,698 
35,946 


15,459 
22,528 
25,293 
12,378 


14,308 

23,077 

14,683 

6,442 


10,132 

12,393 

5,010 

4,763 


Ireland 


85,644 


61,936 


153,565 


136,216 


75,658 


58,510 


32,298 





Milch Cows. 


Total Cattle. 


Sheep. 


Pigs. 


Poultry. 


Leinster . 
Munster • 
Ulster 
Connaught 


227,169 
608,083 
420,640 
212,653 


1,221,818 

1,597,221 

1,145,967 

746,714 


1,362,579 
823,011 
557,008 

1,164,842 


327,082 
452,587 
388,269 
247,181 


5,163,655 
5,942,553 
9,668,818 
4,672,775 


Ireland . 


1,468,545 


4,711,720 


3,907,436 


1,415,119 


25,447,801 



NOTES 
Valuation. — The proportion of the valuation of houses to that of lands roughly 
denotes the proportion of urban population to rural. Compare Antrim and 
Westmeath. 

349 



350 



APPENDIX 



Size of Holdings. — Many of the holdings classified as less than one acre are la- 
bourers' allotments, gardens, accommodation holdings, etc. In Ireland, out 
of a total of 518,183 holdings exceeding one acre, 351,717, or 67"8 per cent, of 
the total number, are of a size not exceeding 30 acres. 

Milch Cows and Total Cattle. — The proportion of Milch Cows to Total Cattle 
will roughly indicate the importance of the dairying industry in each county, 
and, therefore, the opportunity for the organisation of co-operative creameries. 
Compare Limerick and Meath. 

Pigs. — It is interesting to note the number of Pigs in each county in relation to the 
number of Milch Cows. 



CARLOW 
Population, 36,151. 

Valuation— Lands, £132,350 ; Houses, £37,501. 
Area, 221,424 ; Tillage, 74,384. 
Holdings Bought out, 2,227 ; Tenanted, 4,288. 
Holdings according to acreage : 

0-1 1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 

1,866 684 847 968 822 829 477 

Milch Cows, 11,062 ; Total Cattle, 50,312. 
Sheep, 100,219 ; Pigs, 24,354 ; Poultry, 306,886. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Caelow : 

Miscellaneous 


3 


427 


£ 
159 


£ 
1,151 


£ 
5,370 



0-1 

3,947 



DUBLIN 
Population, 476,909. 

Valuation— Lands, £246,637 ; Houses, £1,584,932. 
Area, 226,784; Tillage, 72,211. 
Holdings Bought out, 3,427 ; Tenanted, 645,015. 
Holdings according to acreage : 

1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 
1,711 1,526 897 604 615 543 

Milch Cows, 16,843 ; Total Cattle, 67,358. 
Sheep, 75,936 ; Pigs, 14,076 ; Poultry 264,826. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Dublin : 
Agricultural 
Miscellaneous 


1 

6 


85 
264 


£ 
21 

7,600 


£ 
23 

5,888 


£ 

257 
131,988 


Total . 


7 


349 


7,621 


5,911 


132,245 



APPENDIX 



351 



o-i 

2,206 



KILDARE 

Population, 66,498. 

Valuation— Lands, £251,443 ; Houses, £89,986. 

Area, 418,497 ; Tillage, 102,197. 

Holdings Bought out, 5,765 ; Tenanted, 3,911. 

Holdings according to average : 

1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 
1,658 1,696 1,116 834 993 1,140 

Milch Cows, 12,456 ; Total Cattle, 108,906. 
Sheep, 147,708; Pigs, 15,807; Poultry, 311,318. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


KlLDARE : 

Agricultural . 
Miscellaneous 


1 
3 


104 

492 


£ 
104 


£ 
365 


£ 
2,450 


£ 


Total 


4 


596 


104 


365 


2,450 


— 



0-1 

2,520 



KILKENNY 

Population, 74,821. 

Valuation— Lands, £291,865 ; Houses, £72,087. 

Area, 509,249 ; Tillage, 140,221. 

Holdings Bought out, 10,379; Tenanted, 4,011. 

Holdings according to acreage : 

1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 
1,591 2,399 2,431 2,223 2,416 1,031 

Milch Cows, 39,628 ; Total Cattle, 143,116. 
Sheep, 91,688; Pigs, 35,880; Poultry, 631,949. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Kilkenny : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


16 

8 
4 
3 


1,657 
462 
521 
642 


£ 

9,260 

187 

1,211 

2,305 


£ 

5,619 

1,811 

834 

459 


£ 
153,770 
6,828 
2,173 

8,783 


£ 
132,135 


Total 


31 


3,282 


12,963 


8,723 


171,554 


132,135 



352 



APPENDIX 



KING'S COUNTY 

Population, 56,769. 

Valuation— Lands, £197,944 ; Houses, £50,477. 

Area, 493,263; Tillage, 115,241. 

Holdings Bought out, 6,715 ; Tenanted, 4,868. 

Holdings according to acreage : 

0-1 1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 

2,223 1,530 2,203 2,086 1,418 1,206 877 

Milch Cows, 16,699 ; Total Cattle, 85,158. 
Sheep, 75,135; Pigs, 30,553; Poultry, 360,017. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


King's Co. : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


3 
4 
1 


362 
201 

82 


£ 
230 
1 


£ 

566 
142 
246 


£ 

4,778 
114 
505 


£ 


Total 


8 


645 


231 


954 


5,397 


— 



LONGFORD 

Population, 43,794. 

Valuation— Lands, £125,487 ; Houses, £28,043. 

Area, 257,770 ; Tillage, 66,545. 

Holdings Bought out, 7,183 ; Tenanted, 2,262. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 
1,354 879 2,424 2,677 1,230 



50-100 

588 



Over 100 
261 



Milch Cows, 16,206 ; Total Cattle, 65,414. 
Sheep, 27,822 ; Pigs, 22,819; Poultry, 386,439. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Longford : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


3 
1 

1 

2 


912 
104 
159 
943 


£ 
2,039 
20 
1,042 


£ 
1,966 
126 
100 


£ 
19,026 

282 
888 


£ 
19,026 


Total 


7 


2,118 


3,101 


2,192 


20,196 


19,026 



APPENDIX 



353 



LOUTH 

Population, 63,402. 

Valuation— Lands, £158,331 ; Houses, £92,607. 

Area, 202,181 ; Tillage, 78,919. 

Holdings Bought out, 4,878 ; Tenanted, 3,894. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 


1-5 


5-15 


15-30 


30-50 


50-100 


Over 100 


2,174 


1,238 


2,443 


1,415 


640 


473 


359 



Milch Cows, 10,039 ; Total Cattle, 49,565. 
Sheep, 49,350 ; Pigs, 18,852 ; Poultry, 433,882. 



! 


No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Louth : 

Agricultural 

Miscellaneous 

Banks 


3 

2 
10 


67 
474 
504 


£ 

9 
14 

298 


£ 
1,757 


£ 
1,725 


Total . 


1 15 


1,045 


321 


1,757 


1,725 



MEATH 

Population, 64,920. 

Valuation— Lands, £480,417; Houses, £72,905. 

Area, 577,735; Tillage, 115,637. 

Holdings Bought out, 7,498 ; Tenanted, 6,30 . 

Holdings according to acreage : 

0-1 1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 

3,475 1,730 2,588 1,932 1,247 1,238 1,550 

Milch Cows, 15,805 ; Total Cattle, 225,478. 
Sheep, 225,397 ; Pigs, 14,701 ; Poultry, 514,044. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Meath : 

Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


6 
3 
1 


35 
129 
164 


£ 
423 
126 
134 


£ 
527 
440 


£ 
8,269 

569 
1,075 


£ 


Total 


10 


328 


683 


967 


9,913 


— 



23 



354 



APPENDIX 



QUEEN'S COUNTY 

Population, 54,362. 

Valuation— Lands, £201,754 ; Houses, £56,009. 

Area, 424,723 ; Tillage, 134,108. 

Holdings Bought out, 4,798 ; Tenanted, 6,582. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 

2,025 1,637 



5-15 

2,172 



15-30 
2,023 



30-60 
1,336 



50-100 
1,267 



Over 100 
881 



Milch Cows, 20,095 ; Total Cattle, 88,822. 
Sheep, 56,661 ; Pigs, 32,225 ; Poultry, 384,341. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Queen's County : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


1 
3 
3 
1 


58 
175 
281 

62 


£ 
266 

21 
260 
386 


£ 

420 
805 
563 


£ 

922 

2,012 

836 

201 


£ 
627 


Total 


8 


576 


933 


1,788 


3,971 


627 



WESTMEATH 

Population, 59,812. 

Valuation— Lands, £258,834; Houses, £69,322. 

Area, 434,665; Tillage, 78,549. 

Holdings Bought out, 7,106; Tenanted, 4,959. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 
2,453 



1-5 

1,661 



5-15 
2,311 



15-30 
2,303 



30-50 
1,373 



50-100 
1,065 



Over 100 
868 



Milch Cows, 14,481 ; Total Cattle, 122,006. 
Sheep, 126,181 ; Pigs, 15,638 ; Poultry, 381,176. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


W. Meath : 
Agricultural . 


3 


436 


£ 
54 


£ 
153 


£ 
1,419 


£ 



APPENDIX 



355 



WEXFORD 

Population, 102,287. 

Valuation— Lands, £299,492 ; Houses, £91,546. 

Area, 578,720 ; Tillage, 195,604. ' 

Holdings Bought out, 11,929; Tenanted, 6,043. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 

3,435 2,246 



5-15 
3,076 



15-30 
2,993 



30-50 
2,621 



50-100 
2,479 



Over 100 
1,061 



Milch Cows, 34,512 ; Total Cattle, 141,469. 
Sheep, 175,145; Pigs, 80,732; Poultry, 882,185. 





No. 


Members. - 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Taid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Wexford : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


4 

8 

27 

19 


490 
1,025 
1,325 

297 


£ 

2,170 

2,041 

422 

112 


£ 
1,188 
8,687 
2,910 


£ 

25,602 

20,360 

3,742 

1,173 


£ 
25,025 


Total 


58 


3,137 


4,745 


12,785 


50,877 


25,025 



WICKLOW 

Population, 60,603. 

Valuation— Lands, £192,225 ; Houses, £103,532. 

Area, 499,958 ; Tillage, 91,742. 

Holdings Bought out, 4,715 ; Tenanted, 4,270. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 
1,982 840 



5-15 
1,305 



15-30 
1,223 



30-50 
1,111 



50-100 
1,409 



Over 100 
1,084 



Milch Cows, 19,343 ; Total Cattle, 74,214. 
Sheep, 211,336; Pigs, 21,445 ; Poultry, 306,592. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Wicklow : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


1 

2 
5 

4 


60 

96 

560 

167 


£ 

813 

14 

1,746 

304 


£ 
200 
143 
643 


£ 
3,126 

376 
3,151 

785 


£ 
3,126 


Total 


12 


883 


2,882 


986 


7,438 


3,126 



356 



APPENDIX 



CLARE 

Population, 104,064. 

Valuation— Lands, £273,585 ; Houses, £52,016. 

Area, 788,332 ; Tillage, 155,787. 

Holdings Bought out, 9,375 ; Tenanted, 10,059. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 


1-5 


5-15 


15-30 


30-50 


50-100 


Over 100 


1,826 


1,588 


3,340 


4,862 


3,627 


2,822 


1,333 



Milch Cows, 58,155 ; Total Cattle, 191.^25. 
Sheep, 110,874; Pigs, 45,106; Poultry, 567,195. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Claee : 

Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


10 
13 


774 
546 


£ 

82 
220 


£ 

388 
690 


£ 

1,338 
923 


£ 


Total 


23 


1,320 


302 


1,078 


2,261 


— 



CORK 

Population, 391,190. 

Valuation— Lands. £796,065 ; Houses, £504,562. 

Area, 1,838,921 ; Tillage, 455,824. 

Holdings Bought out, 25,319 ; Tenanted, 17,101. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 

9,566 



1-5 

2,675 



5-15 

4,727 



15-30 
6,436 



30-50 
6,629 



50-100 
8,091 



Over 100 
4,151 



Milch Cows, 195,182 ; Total Cattle, 468,512. 

Sheep, 262,238; Pigs, 162,415; Poultry, 2,358,340. 





No. 


Members. 


C apital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Cork : 

Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


18 

5 

12 

2 


704 
141 

369 

107 


£ 
5,833 
204 

7 


£ 
4,714 
110 
312 


£ 
110,012 
1,402 
270 


£ 
90,436 


. Total 


37 


1,321 


6,044 


5,136 


111,684 


90,436 



APPENDIX 



357 



KERRY 

Population, 159,268. 

Valuation— Lands, £224,424; Houses, £87,115. 

Area, 1,161,752 ; Tillage, 179,390. 

Holdings Bought out, 14,923 ; Tenanted, 7,876. 

Holdings according to acreage : 

0-1 1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 

2,987 2,221 3,324 3,872 3,905 3,989 2,422 

Milch Cows, 116,471 ; Total Cattle, 267,527. 
Sheep, 122,505; Pigs, 73,105; Poultry, 897,263. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Kerry : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


12 

6 

13 


1,538 
769 
917 


£ 

7,205 

46 

916 


£ 

11,622 

1,291 

1,575 


£ 

90,162 

3,503 

2,078 


£ 
89,165 


Total 


31 


3,224 


8,167 


14,488 


95,743 


89,165 



LIMERICK 

Population, 142,846. 

Valuation— Lands, £403,688 ; Houses, £144,554. 

Area, 662,973 ; Tillage, 163,414. 

Holdings Bought out, 12,980 ; Tenanted, 7,001. 

Holding according to acreage : 

0-1 1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 

5,365 1,869 2,449 3,053 2,965 2,925 1,287 

Milch Cows, 107,154; Total Cattle, 242,741. 
Sheep, 41,692 ; Pigs, 56,221 ; Poultry, 700,348. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Limerick : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


40 
2 
2 
4 


2,374 
44 

367 
608 


£ 
14,868 
9 

277 
717 


£ 
33,756 

498 
8,141 


£ 

379,902 
312 
798 

164,083 


£ 
373,735 


Total 


48 


3,393 


15,871 


32,395 


545,095 


378,735 



358 



APPENDIX 



TIPPERARY 

Population, 151,951. 

Valuation— Lands, £545,728; Houses, £143,143. 

Area, 1,050,137 ; Tillage, 252,833. 

Holdings Bought out, 16,676 ; Tenanted, 9,455. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 


1-5 


5-15 


15-30 


30-50 


50-100 


Over 100 


4,250 


2,824 


4,306 


4,864 


4,111 


3,570 


2,117 



Milch Cows, 91,511 ; Total Cattle, 310,196. 
Sheep, 220,721 ; Pigs, 78,355 ; Poultry, 989,773. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


TlPPERARY : 

Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


49 

7 
7 
1 


3,534 
949 

209 
3,800 


£ 
16,075 

364 

5 

12,714 


£ 

24,833 

2,358 

350 

5,596 


£ 

395,537 

8,442 

220 

49,907 


£ 
380,988 


Total 


64 


8,492 


29,158 


33,137 


454,106 


380,988 



WATERFORD 

Population, 83,766. 

Valuation— Lands, £217,633 ; Houses, £98,510. 

Area, 452,912 ; Tillage, 79,921. 

Holdings Bought out, 5,773 ; Tenanted, 5,502. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 


1-5 


5-15 


15-30 


30-50 


50-100 


Over 100 


2,959 


1,325 


1,478 


1,421 


1,291 


1,680 


1,083 



Milch Cows, 39,610 ; Total Cattle, 116,620. 
Sheep, 64,981 ; Pigs, 37,385 ; Poultry, 429,634. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Watepjford : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


2 
1 


128 
173 


£ 
1,069 
455 


£ 
419 


£ 

11,229 

7,305 


£ 
7,457 


Total 


3 


291 


1,524 


419 


18,534 


7,457 



APPENDIX 



359 



ANTRIM 

Population, 478,603. 

Valuation— Lands, £418,107; Houses, £1,528,493. 

Area, 711,666; Tillage, 227,013. 

Holdings Bought out, 12,908 ; Tenanted, 10,614. 

Holdings according to acreage : 

0-1 1-5 5-15 15-3 30-50 50-100 Over 100 

3,536 1,945 5,207 5,907 3,656 2,446 745 

Milch Cows, 62,635 ; Total Cattle, 156,507. 
Sheep, 94,706 ; Pigs, 69,165 ; Poultry, 1,040,019. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Antrim : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


10 
4 

5 


1,672 
258 

1,287 


£ 
6,989 
253 

927 


£ 
2,970 
945 

500 


£ 
107,557 
4,160 

14,814 


£ 
107,244 


Total 


19 


3,217 


8,169 


4,415 


126,531 


107,244 



ARMAGH 

Population, 119,625. 

Valuation— Lands, £260,019; Houses, £182,076. 

Area, 312,659 ; Tillage, 142,239. 

Holdings Bought out, 14,584 ; Tenanted, 5,381. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 5-15 

1,730 3,417 8,222 



15-30 30-50 
4,413 1,425 



50-100 
568 



Over 100 
122 



Milch Cows, 30,373; Total Cattle, 93,195. 
Sheep, 24,694; Pigs, 30,949; Poultry, 938,528. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Armagh : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


11 
4 
8 
1 


1,869 

235 

1,072 


£ 
3,807 
31 
3,803 


£ 
3,337 

320 
1,063 


£ 
24,639 
649 
5,147 


£ 
23,449 


Total 


24 


3,176 


7,641 


4,720 


30,435 


23,449 



360 



APPENDIX 



CAVAN 

Population, 91,071. 

Valuation— Lands, £226,200 ; Houses, £52,834. 

Area, 467,025 ; Tillage, 145,774. 

Holdings Bought out, 14,027 ; Tenanted, 6,443. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 

1,398 



1-5 

1,392 



5-15 

5,881 



15-30 

7,074 



30-50 
2,465 



50-100 
926 



Over 100 
264 



Milch Cows, 46,522 ; Total Cattle, 126,613. 
Sheep, 22,700 ; Pigs, 63,630 ; Poultry, 1,005,416. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Cavan 

Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


23 
15 
13 


3,108 

1,396 

862 


£ 
7,871 

240 
1,113 


£ 
1,760 
2,586 
1,178 


£ 
96,905 
3,395 
2,302 


£ 
96,122 


Total 


51 


5,366 


9,224 


5,524 


102,602 


96,122 



DONEGAL 

Population, 168,420. 

Valuation— Lands, £228,483 ; Houses, £85,995. 

Area, 1,190,269; Tillage, 222,758. 

Holdings Bought out, 15,705 ; Tenanted, 15,902. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 

1,894 2,912 



5-15 
10,411 



15-30 

8,577 



30-50 
4,136 



50-100 
3,075 



Over 100 
1,391 



Milch Cows, 62,391 ; Total Cattle, 169,066. 

Sheep, 156,673 ; Pigs, 28,041 ; Poultry, 1,221,605. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Donegal : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


15 

5 

20 

7 


2,597 
350 

2,102 
601 


£ 
6,464 

286 
3,884 

474 


£ 
4,758 
1,726 
1,401 

4,854 


£ 

46,661 

19,767 

5,050 

8,248 


£ 
42,999 


Total 


47 


5,650 


10,108 


12,739 


79,926 


42,999 



APPENDIX 



361 



DOWN 

Population, 304,589. 

Valuation— Lands, £488,700 ; Houses, £660,781. 

Area, 612,113; Tillage, 243,790. 

Holdings Bought out, 15,610 ; Tenanted, 15,002. 

Holdings according to acreage : 

0-1 1-5 5-15 15-30 30-50 50-100 Over 100 

7,473 3,522 8,601 6,409 3,246 1,815 438 

Milch Cows, 48,512 ; Total Cattle, 151, 596. 

Sheep, 105,373 ; Pigs, 46,539 ; Poultry, 1,372,068. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Down : 

Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


1 

8 
1 


93 
462 


£ 
1,060 
265 


£ 

70S 
1,252 


£ 
2,234 
2,165 


£ 
2,236 


Total 


10 


555 


1,325 


2,010 


4,399 


2,236 



FERMANAGH 

Population, 61,811. 

Valuation— Lands, £189,148; Houses, £53,279. 

Area, 417,665; Tillage, 101,610. 

Holdings Bought out, 10,329 ; Tenanted, 3,445. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 5-15 

946 1,164 3,404 



15-30 
4,112 



30-50 
2,375 



50-100 
1,209 



Over 100 
437 



Milch Cows, 38,166 ; Total Cattle, 93,208. 
Sheep, 8,855 ; Pigs, 21,494 ; Poultry, 773,533. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Fermanagh 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


13 

2 
3 


2,545 

130 
591 


£ 
9,026 


£ 
5,257 

300 


£ 
98,324 

355 


£ 
94,613 


Total 


18 


3,266 


9,026 


5,557 


98,679 


94,613 



362 



APPENDIX 



DERRY 

Population, 140,621. 

Valuation— Lands, £222,501 ; Houses, £214,527. 

Area, 513,388 ; Tillage, 172,549. 

Holdings Bought out, 11,493 ; Tenanted, 5,367. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 


1-5 


5-15 


15-30 


30-50 


50-100 


Over 100 


1,633 


1,433 


4,900 


4,345 


2,372 


1,493 


626 



Milch Cows, 36,027 ; Total Cattle, 100,431. 
Sheep, 66,490 ; Pigs, 38,649 ; Poultry, 814,770. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Derry : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


10 
3 
4 
5 


1,367 
118 
108 
993 


£ 
6,061 
14 

597 


£ 

692 
184 
271 

58 


£ 

28,782 
778 
205 

16,653 


£ 
28,605 


Total 


22 


2,586 


6,672 


1,205 


46,423 


28,605 



MONAGHAN 

Population, 71,395. 

Valuation— Lands, £208,274 ; Houses, £67,678. 

Area, 318,806; Tillage, 111,464. 

Holdings Bought out, 12,729 ; Tenanted, 4,733. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 

992 



1-5 

1,876 



5-15 

7,284 



15-30 

5,027 



30-50 
1,561 



50-100 
529 



Over 100 
133 



Milch Cows, 31,232 ; Total Cattle, 88,286. 

Sheep, 13,169; Pigs, 41,670; Poultry, 1,003,674. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


MONAGHABf : 

Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


19 
2 

7 


3,325 
137 
693 


£ 
6,252 
18 

1,797 


£ 
5,246 

965 


£ 
. 71,078 
236 

2,785 


£ 
65,941 


Total 


28 


4,155 


8,067 


6,211 


74,099 


65,941 



APPENDIX 



363 



TYRONE 

Population, 142,437. 

Valuation— Lands, £322,593 ; Houses, £142,554. 

Area, 778,943; Tillage, 231,105. 

Holdings Bought out, 16,208 ; Tenanted, 11,577. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 
2,416 



1-5 5-15 
2,345 7,742 



15-30 30-50 
7,834 4,057 



50-100 
2,542 



Over 100 
754 



Milch Cows, 54,782 ; Total Cattle, 167,065. 
Sheep, 63,344 ; Pigs, 48,132 ; Poultry, 1,499,205. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Tyrone : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


36 

5 
5 


4,978 

317 
179 


£ 
15,709 

935 
90 


£ 
11,127 

225 
1,464 


£ 
158,576 

938 
537 


£ 
157,784 


Total 


46 


5,474 


16,734 


12,816 


160,151 


157,784 



GALWAY 

Population, 181,686. 

Valuation— Lands, £384,366 ; Houses, £98,945. 

Area, 1,467,850 ; Tillage, 222,315. 

Holdings Bought out, 15,510 ; Tenanted, 21,167. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 

2,111 4,220 



5-15 15-30 
12,179 9,662 



30-50 50-100 
4,019 2,377 



Over 100 
1,984 



Milch Cows, 48,823 ; Total Cattle, 209,032. 

Sheep, 632,286; Pigs, 71,937; Poultry, 1,286,963. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Galway : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


19 

13 

3 


3,286 

1,078 

399 


£ 

686 
453 
160 


£ 

5,844 

2,113 

160 


£ 

10,744 
1,785 
4,318 


£ 


Total 


35 

■ 


4,763 


1,299 


8,117 


16,847 


— 



364 



APPENDIX 



LEITRIM 

Population, 63,557. 

Valuation— Lands, £11,520; Houses, £22,189. 

Area, 376,510 ; Tillage, 84,347. 

Holdings Bought out, 11,906 ; Tenanted, 2,944. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 


1-5 


5-15 


15-30 


30-50 


50-100 


Over 100 


790 


873 


5,147 


5,288 


1,821 


675 


205 



Milch Cows, 35,668 ; Total Cattle, 91,279. 
Sheep, 13,668; Pigs, 26,499; Poultry, 587,460. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Leitrim : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


10 
2 

14 
2 


2,285 

100 

1,690 

68 


£ 
3,807 
12 
1,473 


£ 
2,901 
35 
3,543 


£ 
34,989 

77 
6,286 


£ 
33,714 


Total 


28 


4,143 


5,292 


6,479 


41,352 


33,714 



MAYO 

Population, 191,969. 

Valuation— Lands, £262,128; Houses, £51,144. 

Area, 1,333,340; Tillage, 188,516. 

Holdings Bought out, 13,412 ; Tenanted, 23,302. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 1-5 
2,018 3,337 



5-15 
15,060 



15-30 
10,168 



30-50 
2,997 



50-100 
1,660 



Over 100 
1,349 



Milch Cows, 60,301 ; Total Cattle, 202,700. 
Sheep, 291,115; Pigs, 78,276; Poultry, 1,307,244. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Mayo : 

Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


1 
23 
37 

1 


595 

2,428 

4,294 

60 


£ 

981 

351 

3,970 

16 


£ 

316 
3,337 
6,315 


£ 

7,467 

8,223 

10,978 

422 


£ 
6,651 


Total 


62 


7,377 


5,318 


9,968 


27,090 


6,651 



APPENDIX 



365 



ROSCOMMON 

Population, 93,904. 

Valuation— Lands, £260,202; Houses, £41,885. 

Area, 608,290 ; Tillage, 129,456. 

Holdings Bought out, 14,895 ; Tenanted, 7,024. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 


1-5 


5-15 


15-30 


30-50 


50-100 


Over 100 


1,188 


2,178 


8,552 


6,312 


1,913 


931 


770 



Milch Cows, 35,294 ; Total Cattle, 141,344. 
Sheep, 161,494 ; Pigs, 39,836 ; Poultry, 838,071. 



1 


No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Roscommon : 
Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


6 
9 
4 
1 


2,292 

1,236 

269 

425 


£ 

4,957 

170 

30 

129 


£ 
1,646 
2,714 
1,105 

339 


£ 

23,975 

4,775 

750 

3,349 


£ 
21,869 


Total 


20 


4,222 


5,286 


5,804 


32,749 


21,869 



SLIGO 

Population, 78,850. 

Valuation— Lands, £167,550 ; Houses, £47,650. 

Area, 442,205 ; Tillage, 85,757. 

Holdings Bought out, 9,812 ; Tenanted, 5,350. 

Holdings according to acreage : 



0-1 


1-5 


5-15 


15-30 


30-50 


50-100 


Over 100 


906 


1,445 


5,361 


4,516 


1,628 


799 


455 



Milch Cows, 32,567 ; Total Cattle, 102,359. 
Sheep, 66,279 ; Pigs, 30,633 ; Poultry, 653,037. 





No. 


Members. 


Capital. 


Turnover. 




Paid. 


Loan. 


Total. 


Butter. 


Sligo : 

Creameries 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


11 

2 

5 

2 


6,611 
366 
482 
171 


£ 
11,664 
71 

778 
16 


£ 
4,843 

249 

1,421 

26 


£ 
103,032 
418 
1,296 


£ 
94,685 


Total 


20 


7,640 


12,529 


6,539 


104,746 


94,685 



366 



APPENDIX 



SUMMARY OF FARMERS' SOCIETIES * 





°'-3 




Paid-up 
Capital. 


Loan 
Capital. 


Turnover. 




So 

3 o 

<J1 


Total. 


Butter. 


Munster : 
Creameries . 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


121 8,278 
31 2,850 

47 2,408 
7 4,515 


£ 

45,050 
1,160 
1,425 

13,431 


£ 

65,344 
4,147 
3,426 

13,737 


£ 

986,842 

22,302 

4,290 

213,990 


£ 
941,781 


Total 


206 


18,051 


61,066 


86,654 


1,227,424 


941,781 


Leinster : 
Creameries . 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


25 
39 
57 
45 

166 


3,177 
3,451 
3,680 
4,014 


14,553 
3,124 
5,106 

11,015 


9,393 

13,206 

7,390 

7,744 


202,446 
47,031 
13,200 

149,880 


179,939 


Total 


14,322 


33,798 


37,733 


412,557 


179,939 


Ulster : 

Creameries . 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


138 
41 
60 
26 


21,554 
2,956 
5,284 
3,551 


63,239 

1,107 

11,534 

2,088 


35,915 
7,013 
5,181 
6,876 


634,756 
31,150 
16,720 
40,257 


618,991 


Total 


265 1 33,345 


77,968 


54,985 


722,883 


618,991 


CONNATJGHT : 

Creameries . 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


28 ' 11,783 

55 , 7,416 

73 ! 7,813 

9| 1,123 


21,409 

1,290 

6,705 

321 


9,706 
12,179 
14,499 

4,525 


169,463 

24,327 

21,096 

8,189 


156,919 


Total 


165 

312 
166 
237 

87 


; 28,135 


29,725 


36,909 


223,075 


156,919 


Ireland : 

Creameries . 
Agricultural . 
Banks . 
Miscellaneous 


; 44,792 

' 16,673 

, 19,185 

13,203 


144,251 

6,681 

24,768 

26,855 


119,352 

36,545 
55,492 
32,882 


1,993,500 

124,720 

55,372 

412,316 


1,897,630 


Total 


802 ; 93,853 


202,555 


244,271 


2,585., 908 


897,630 



1 The number of Societies has increased since these figures were tabulated. 



APPENDIX 367 



Notes on Farmers' Societies 

These Societies have been organised by the l.A.O.S. With the 
exception of the Banks, they are registered under the Industrial and 
Provident Societies Act, and are like Ordinary Joint Stock Companies 
in constitution except that each member has only one vote, and there 
is no limit to the number of shares which may be issued. No member 
may hold more than 200 shares. Shares are usually of the denomina- 
tion of One Pound. Interest is limited to 5 per cent. In Creameries 
shares are usually taken by members at the rate of one for each milch 
cow. 

The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, 84 Merrion Square, 
Dublin, is the parent body of all these Societies, and it is governed 
by such of the Societies as pay an annual affiliation fee. The affiliated 
societies elect the President and Vice-President, and the Societies in 
each Province elect the Committee at the rate of four for each Pro- 
vince. Individual members elect four members also. The Committee 
thus elected directs the work. 

Creameries. — Suppliers of milk are paid according to amount of 
butter fat in milk. Suppliers receive back about 8A gallons separ- 
ated milk for every 10 gallons milk supplied. Prices paid for 
milk decided at monthly meeting of Committee elected by members. 
Many Creameries, called Auxiliaries, merely separate, sending 
cream to Central where it is churned. Cost of Auxiliary from 
£600 to £1,000, cost of Central from £1,000 to £2,000. 

Note. — If Creamery butter only realised for the farmer 10 per cent, 
more than butter produced at home, the figures for 1910 would denote 
an extra gain to Ireland of £189,763 for the one year. This represents 
a saving for one year, as contrasted with the £100,000 subscribed, in 
21 years, by private individuals to the l.A.O.S. 

As the usual difference between the price realised by Creameries 
for their butter, and that obtained by farmers in the markets for 
home butter is between 3d. and 4<2. per lb., and consequently the 
saving effected by the Creameries in one year is nearer £400,000. 

Agricultural. — These are Societies specially formed for the purpose 
of supplying members with seeds, manures, and feeding stuffs 
of best quality at lowest prices. 

Banks have no shareholders. Members pay an entrance fee, and 
are jointly and severally liable for all the debts of the Bank. In 
the statistics supplied, which should be read in reference to the 
Map, one of the columns indicates local deposits. The "loan 
capital" denotes sums borrowed from joint stock banks on overdraft, 
and from government departments. Loans are only granted to 
members for reproductive purposes, and each intending borrower 
has to produce two sureties satisfactory to the Committee. The 
rates of interest charged to borrowers are from Id. to ljd. per £1 
per month. 

Miscellaneous. — Under " miscellaneous " are included Poultry, 
Flax, Bee-keeping, Home Industries, and Bacon-Curing Societies. 
The Poultry Societies buy eggs by weight so as to encourage 
the poultry keepers to improve their breeds. 

The organ of the Agricultural and Industrial Development movement 
is the Irish Homestead. Weekly, One Penny. 



368 APPENDIX 

SUMMARY OF CO-OPERATIVE CREAMERIES, 1910 





No. of 


Member- 


Paid-up 


Loan 


Butter. 


Other 




Societies. 


ship. 


Capital. 


Capital. 


Sales. 


Ulsteb : 






£ 


£ 


£ 


£ 


Antrim 


10 


1,672 


6,989 


2,970 


107,244 


313 


Armagh 


11 


1,869 


3,807 


3,337 


23,449 


1,190 


Cavan 


23 


3,108 


7,871 


1,760 


96,122 


783 


Donegal 


15 


2,597 


6,464 


4,758 


42,999 


3,662 


Down 


1 


93 


1,060 


768 


2,234 


— 


Fermanagh . 


13 


2,545 


9,026 


5,257 


94,613 


3,711 


Londonderry 


10 


1,367 


6,061 


692 


28,605 


177 


Monaghan . 


19 


3,325 


6,252 


5,246 


65,941 


5,137 


Tyrone 


36 


4,978 


15,709 


11,127 


157,784 


792 




138 


21,554 


63,239 


35,915 


618,991 


15,765 


Munstee, : 














Cork . 


18 


704 


5,833 


4,714 


90,436 


19,576 


Kerry 


12 


1,538 


7,205 


11,622 


89,165 


997 


Limerick 


40 


2,374 


14,868 


23,756 


373,735 


6,167 


Tipperary . 


49 


3,534 


16,075 


24,833 


380,988 


14,549 


Waterford . 


2 


128 


1,069 


419 


7,457 


3,772 




121 


8,278 


45,050 


65,344 


941,781 


45,061 


Leinsteb : 














Kilkenny 


16 


1,657 


9,260 


5,619 


132,135 


21,635 


Longford 


3 


912 


2,039 


1,966 


19,026 


— 


Queen's Co. 


1 


58 


266 


420 


627 


295 


Wexford 


4 


490 


2,170 


1,188 


25,025 


577 


Wicklow 


1 


60 


818 


200 


3,126 


— 




25 


3,177 


14,553 


9,393 


179,939 


22,507 


CONNAUGHT : 














Leitrim 


10 


2,285 


3,807 


2,901 


33,714 


1,275 


Mayo . 


1 


595 


981 


316 


6,651 


816 


Roscommon 


6 


2,292 


4,957 


1,646 


21,869 


2,106 


Sligo . 


11 


6,611 


11,664 


4,843 


94,685 


8,347 




28 


11,783 


21,409 


9,706 


156,919 


12,544 


Ulster 


138 


21,554 


63,239 


35,915 


618,991 


15,765 


Mttnstee 


121 


8,278 


45,050 


65,344 


941,781 


45,061 


Leeststeb 


25 


3,177 


14,553 


9,393 


179,939 


22,507 


CONNAUGHT . 


28 


11,783 


21,409 


9,706 


156,919 


12,544 


Total 


312 


44,792 


144,251 


120,358 


1,897,630 


95,877 



Number 


312 


Members 


44,792 


Capital . 


. £144,251 


Loan Capital . 


. £120,358 


Butter Sales . 


. £1,897,630 


Other Sales . 


£95,877 



APPENDIX 369 

Creamery Map 

Note. — If Creamery Butter only realised for the farmer 10 per cent, 
more than Butter produced at home, the figures for 1910 would denote 
an extra gain to Ireland of £189,763 for the one year. This represents 
a saving for one year, as contrasted with the £100,000 subscribed, in 
21 years, by private individuals to the I.A.O.S. 



N.B. — The usual difference between the price realised by Creameries 
for their butter, and that obtained by farmers in the markets for 
home butter is between 3d. and 4d. per lb., and consequently the 
saving effected by the Creameries in one year is nearer £400,000. 



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371 



INDEX 



Abbey Theatre Company, visits 
to London of, 3 ; founded by Mr. 
Yeats, 301 ; the productions of, 
302 

Achilles, 58 

Adrian, IV, Pope, the Bull of, 
gave Ireland to England, 17, 
133, 134 n. 

" A. E." See Russell, George 

Albert, Marcellin, held up as ex- 
ample by Sinn Fein, 200, 201 n. 

Albuquerque, 131 

Alexander III, Pope, authorised 
the annexation of Ireland, 
134 n. 

Allen, one of the Fenians known 
as " Manchester Martyrs," 30 

All-For-Ireland League, founded 
by William O'Brien, 185 ; Lord 
Dunraven a member of, 185 

America, in United States of, 
people seldom speak of the Civil 
War, 68; 70, 91, 95, 105, 106 ; 
little need of secrecy in, 107; 
122, 123, 179, 343 

Ancient Order of Hibernians. 
See Hibernians 

Antrim, 244 

Archimedes cited as an exemplar 
of science, 319, 332, 333 

Argentina, 248 

Aristotle, cited, 277, 319, 332 

Armagh, city of, 8 

Armagh, County of, 240, 250 

Ascendancy, 166, 167 

Ashanti, author war correspon- 
dent at, 60 
Asquith, Mr., remarkable orator, 
called Parliament the Great 
Inquest of the Nation, 209 ; a 
man of iron towards Irish 
prisoners, 227 ; took attitude 
of Brutus or Cato, 228 ; let the 
law go hang, 229 



Astley, Sir John, famous in sport, 
bitter opponent of Home Rule, 38 

Athlone, the woollen mills of, 243 

Austin, Rev. F. W., Rector of St. 
Columba's, Knock, quotation 
from a letter of, written to the 
Belfast News-Letter, 161 n. 

Australia, Parnell a great name 
in, 53, 101 

B 

Bacon, Roger, 329, 333 
Bacteriology, the science of, 222 
Balbriggan, linen trade of, 244 
Balfour, A. J., as Prime Minister, 

200 
Balfour, Gerald, 128 n. 
Balingarry, Tipperary, scene of 
abortive rising of Young Ire- 
landers, 25 
Ballarat, rebellion of miners at, 48 
Bangor, massacre of monks at, 8 
Banims, The, 291 
Begbie, Harold, 336 ; quotation 
from book of, " The Lady Next 
Door," 336 n. 
Belfast, men of, Irish, 2, 129 n. ; 
author's visit to, 159, 162, 164 ; 
"the Athens of the North," 
165, 167 ; the rapid rise and 
continued prosperity of, 232 ; 
the trade of, 234, 241, 252 ; no 
Roman Catholic ever been ap- 
pointed Mayor, 159 n. ; Harold 
Begbie gives in " The Lady 
Next Door" unprepossessing 
picture of, 336 n. ; Frankfort 
Moore in "The Ulsterman," 
gives appreciative but at times 
mordant study of, 336 n. ; some 
critics of, say that Belfast men 
are too hard and describe the 
cruel faces one meets in the 
streets, 336 ; John G. Ervine 
says amassing of fortunes paral- 



373 



374 



INDEX 



lei with the pinched and pallid 
faces and " phthisis-stricken 
homes of sweated workers of, 
336; 337, 339 

Belgium, 244 ; scientific output 
of, considerable, 328 

Belleek, the pottery manufac- 
tories of, 252 

Beresford, Lord Charles, humor- 
ous utterance of, in the House 
of Commons, 284 

Bergson, Henri, Pope condemned 
philosophy of, 139 n., 303 

Berkeley, Bishop, claimed as Irish, 
323 ; was educated in Ireland, 
323 

Berlin, author studied at Uni- 
versity of, 52 

Bermondsey, Parnell held a meet- 
ing in, 53 

Birmingham, George. See Han- 
nay 

Birrell, A., Chief Secretary to Lord- 
Lieutenant of Ireland, 83, 85, 
88, 97, 266 

Bismarck, remotely affected the 
butter trade of Ireland, 246 

Blaine, Alexander, quoted, 269 n. 

Blarney, woollen mills of, 243 

Blatchford, 126 n. 

Board of Intermediate Education, 
263, 265 

Board of National Education, 263 

Board of Works, 255 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 3, 21, 88, 
108, 203, 204; unfitted for 
Parliament, 215, 256 

Borrow, 279 

Botha, General Louis, author 
met Davitt at table of , 41 

Botha, Mrs., 41 

Bouguereau, a famous artist, 306 

Boyle, name immortalised in 
Boyle 's Law, known as Mario tte 's 
Law in France, 323 

Boyle, William, the true comedy 
of, 301 ; wrote play " The Build- 
ing Fund," 301 
Boyne Waters, strains of, 3 
Brett, Sergeant, killed by Fenians, 

30 
Brian Boru, Monarch of Ireland 
in 1014, 9, 10 ; crushed power 
of the Danes, 67, 111 
Bright, John, 128 n. 
Brookes, Sydney, 136 n. 
Brougham, Lord, laughed at the 



undulatory theory of light as 
expounded by Young, 222 ; 
cried " The Schoolmaster is 
abroad," 267 

Brouncker, Lord, spoken of as 
Irish by Euler in his " Intro- 
ductio in Analys in infinitorum," 
326, 327 n. 

Browning, 313 

Bruno, Giordano, burnt at the 
stake, 328 

Brutus, 228, 229 

Bryan, American ex-Secretary of 
State, could not trace Irish 
ancestry, 120 

Bryant, Dr. Sophie, 305 

Bryce, Annan, 128 n. 

Buddhists, religious sect of ancient 
origin, 146 

Burke, Mr., assassinated in 
Phoenix Park, 178 

Burke, Sheridan's reply to, on the 
French Revolution, 282 ; Gold- 
smith saw more clearly than, 
282 

Burns, Robbie, 49 ; incarnated 
the spirit of a people, 280 ; cited 
for comparison, 318 ; must be 
appreciated for the whole 
volume and force and wealth of 
allusion and evocation of his 
various many spirited verse, 318 

Butt, Isaac, first to formulate the 
Home Rule movement, 32 ; the 
flabby policy of, 35 ; the lead- 
ing spirit in the Home Rule 
Federation, 176 ; a Protestant 
of Conservative leanings, 176 ; 
a description of, 176, 177, 294 

Byron, satirised Castlereagh, had 
a rare instinct for character, 
19; a good ten-stone man, 29, 
49, 72, 213, 219; quoted on 
education, 261, 274, 279; 
showered eulogies on Sheridan, 
282, 286, 287, 299; great 
beyond artistry, 320 n. 

C 

Csesar, Julius, described Britain, 
103 

Calvin, robust faith of, 268 

Camoens, 317 

Campbell, J. H., K.C., extract 
from a speech of, delivered in 
House of Commons relative to 



INDEX 



375 



priests subordinating every- 
thing to religion, 144 n. 

Campion, found schools for medi- 
cine and law in 1571, 6 

Carleton, the tales of, 5, 27 ; de- 
scription of faction fighting, 173, 
291 ; redolent of genuine na- 
tive Irish humour, 292, 294, 297 

Carlow, poultry trade of, 248 

Carlyle, 196, 279 

Carnot, 21; organiser of victory, 
202 

Carpeaux, the Dance of, 309 

Carrack, Rev. J. M., curate of 
St. James, Little Roke, Ken- 
ley, referred to in quotation from 
" Daily Chronicle " as a victim 
of political animus, 126 n., 127 n. 

Carson, Sir Edward, his voice 
that of a Southerner, 166, 188, 
337 

Casement, Sir Roger, 188 

Casey, John Keegan (" Leo "), 293 

Casey, mathematician, 326 

Castle, Dublin, 74, 83, 84, 86; 
Board of Education off-spring 
of, 263 

Castledown, Lord, active in pro- 
moting afforestation in Ireland, 
257 n. 

Castlereagh, Bvron's description 
of, 19 

Catholic Association, held sway 
from 1809-1829, 172; only 
organisation having a definite 
religious stamp, 182 

Catholic Church, the power of, 
15 ; the impress of, 16 ; the 
intervention of, 17 ; the history 
of, shows that it is averse to 
scientific education, 328 

Catholic Emancipation, 22, 23, 24 

Cato, 215, 228, 229 

Cavendish, Lord Frederick, assas- 
sinated in Phoenix Park, 178 

Cervantes, in "Don Quixote," ex- 
hales experience and philo- 
sophy, 309 

Chamberlain, Joseph, speech of, 
at West Islington likening Ire- 
land to Poland, 74 

Charlie, Bonnie Prince, seemed 
beau ideal of gallant leader, 16 

Cherry, Lord Justice, 144 n. 

Cicero, it was said of that his excess 
was moderation, 70 

Clan-Na-Gael, Irish American 



Organisation, succeeded the 
Fenian movement in America, 
31, 116 

Clare, author's father born in, 48 ; 
92, 97, 148, 148 n., 149n., 150 n., 
151 n., 158 n., 242 ; instance of 
official bungling in, 254, 326 n. 

Clare, West, author elected Mem- 
ber of Parliament for, 73 

Claretie, Jules, said that common 
sense was the backbone of wit, 
206 

Clarke, Joseph I. C, an Irish- 
American, achieved success 
with his poem, " The Fighting 
Race," 290, 291 

Clemenceau, M., 201 n. 

Cleopatra claimed as Irish, 281 

Clontarf, the battle of 1014, 8 ; 
Macliag's account of, 10 ». 

Cobbett, 286 

Cochrane, Rev. S., of Fisherwick 
Presbyterian Church, quota 
tion from, 161 n. 

Collier, Rev. H. G., speech de- 
livered at Ulster Hall cited, 
160 n. 

Colum, Padraic, 205, 283 ; true 
poet, 314, 315, 316 ; tinged 
with Moonshine school, 316 

Columbus, 247 ; the projects of, 
derided and denounced, 328 

Congested Districts Board, 86, 87, 
88, 89, 250, 259 

Connaught, woollen mills of, 244 

Constantine, 51, 65 

Copernicus, 329, 333 

Cork, woollen trade of, 244 ; glove- 
making of, 252 

Cottle, Amos, 299 

Countess of Huntingdon Per- 
suasion, a religious sect of 
recent origin, 145 

Courteline, 305 

Crabbe, was to English verse what 
the Banims are to Irish prose, 
291 

Crabtree, Father, represents one 
type of Priest, 1 56 

Craig, Capt., a reactionary factor, 
66, 161 n. 

Credit Societies, 370, 371 

Cromwell, the curse of, 14, 67 ; 
John Milton noted in Parlia- 
mentary circles as Secretary of, 
209 ; the great speech of, 
" Take away that Bauble," 210 



376 



INDEX 



Cronin, Dr., the murder of, 117 

Crowther, Dr., 260 n. 

Cuffe, Hon. Otway, helped to 

establish a wood factory in 

Kilkenny, 257 n. 
Cumberland, Duke of, " Grand 

Master " of Orange Society, 

168 n. 
Cunningham, author of " English 

Industry and Commerce," 336 n. 
Curry, Father John, parish priest 

of Drogheda, letter to " Free- 

mans Journal" referring to 

priests placing their religion 

first and their country second, 

143 n. 



D 

" Daily Chronicle," quotation 
from, referring to the case of the 
Rev. J. M. Carrack, 126 n. 

Danes, grafted on to original Irish 
stock, 2 ; defeated at Clontarf, 
7, 8, 239, 246 

Dante, author of Catholic Poem 
" Divina Commedia," attri- 
buted the decline of the Church 
to the endowments of Con- 
stantine, 65, 317, 319 

D'Arcy, Chevalier, quoted by 
German mathematician, 324 ; 
published two memoirs on 
Least Action, 325 ; of Irish 
origin, 325, 325 n. 

D'Arcy, Rt. Rev. Dr., a letter 
from Mr. Swift MacNeill to, 
124 n. 

Darwin, the fame of, 69, 223, 322 

Daudet, Alphonse, 206 

Davis, Thomas, name not Hiber- 
nian, not a Roman Catholic, 2 ; 
Young Irelander, 24 ; a Pro- 
testant, 25 ; potent inspirator, 
25 ; patriotic verses of, 25, 26, 
102, 288, 289, 290, 293 

Davitt, Michael, agricultural re- 
forms, of, 5 ; the son of pea- 
sants, 40 ; description of, 41 
had rare and simple courtliness 
42 ; his opinion of Parnell, 42 
chosen vessel of a great move 
ment, 43 ; his clear vision, 44 
land campaign of, commenced 
at Mayo, 44, 50 ; agent of Ire- 
land's redemption, 55 ; author's 
conversation with, 70 ; saying 



of, " Physical force is a Faith," 
71, 72 ; secured rejection of an 
arbitration Treaty between 
Great Britain and America, 
122, 136 n. ; founder of Land 
League, 177 ; believed in land 
nationalisation, 178 ; physical 
force as a " Faith," 203 

Davy, 322 

Deasy, Capt., Fenian Leader, 30 

Deirdre, rediscovery of, 294; haven 
of rest for tempest-tossed souls, 
295; cult of, 295; old-time 
Nationalists did not know, 295 ; 
restoration of due to A. E., 295 ; 
well-meaning young English 
women devoted to, 296 ; utter 
oracular sayings regarding, 296 ; 
Cabinet Minister fostered cult 
of, 296 ; Idealism of, 304 ; 
Synge wrote a " Deirdre " but 
had never seen, 310 ; Ireland 
in her fiercest agitation had 
never heard of, 310 ; Ireland 
content never to have heard of, 
310 ; Yeats wrote a ghosted 
drama round, 310 ; diaphanous, 
310 

Delage, the experiments of, 322 

Democritus, originally expressed 
the atomic theory, 332 

Denmark, the commercial rise of, 
246 

Department of Agriculture, 236 «., 
239 n., 240 n., 241 «,., 242 n. ; 
sends out Instructors to show 
farmers the best means of pro- 
duction, 246, 248, 250 ; fosters 
horse breeding, 253 n., 275 n., 
276 n., 217 n., 259 

Descartes, 7 ; forced to seek seclu- 
sion, 328, 333 

Devlin, Joseph, controller of the 
Ancient Order of Hibernians, 
183 ; remarkable orator, called 
Parliament the Great Inquest 
of the Nation, 209 

Dickens, 220, 279, 285 

Differential Calculus, the mother 
of innumerable practical works, 
222, 321 

Dillon, John, men of Belfast as 
Irish as, 2, 55, 135 n. ; report of 
speech of, referring to the right 
of the Catholic Laity to exer- 
cise their own judgment in 
political matters, 145 n. 



INDEX 



377 



Doheny, M., Young Irelander, 24 ; 

his style of oratory, 24 n. 
Donegal, the linen trade of, 244 
Doonagore, a small village in Co. 

Clare, 254, 256 
Down, Archdeacon of, a kind of 

Local War Lord, 161 n. 
Downey, 303 
Dripsey, manufactories for woollen 

goods of, 243 
Drum, Rev. Father, 153 n. 
Dryden, 286 
Dublin, the industries of, 239, 

244, 252 
Dufferin, Lord, 253 
Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan, on 

" wrongs done to the Milesians," 

1, 24, 26 
Dunlop, R., author of " Ireland 

under the Commonwealth," 

cited, 11, 15 
Dunn, Peter, author of " Mr. 

Dooley in Peace and War," 112 
Dunraven, Lord, ridiculed the 

Castle system in his book " The 

Outlook in Ireland," 85 n. ; 

member of All-For-Ireland 

League, 185, 241 
Dunsany, Lord, 302 ; discovered 

Francis Ledwidge, 311, 312 

E 

Edgeworth, Maria, author of 
delightful tales giving insight 
into the modern phases of Ire- 
land, as " Castle Rackrent," 
etc., 4, 5, 11, 213, 291 

Egg trade, 239 ; capable of de- 
velopment in Ireland, 247 

Eire, 78 

Elgin marbles, 309 

Elizabeth, the successive planta- 
tions of, 15 ; is dead, 66, 295 

Emerson, 159 n. 

Emmet, Robert, name not Hiber- 
nian, not a Roman Catholic, 2 ; 
his vouth, etc., 21, 22 ; death 
of, 26, 102, 298 

Empedocles, 319, 332 

Endymion, expresses the search- 
ing for a guide amid the ideals 
of life, 309 

Eratosthenes, 319, 332, 333 

Ervine, John G., 302 ; points out 
that the amassing of fortune 
in Belfast is parallel to the 



pinched and pallid faces and 

phthisis-stricken homes of the 

sweated workers in Belfast 

slums, 336 
Estates Commissioners, 86 
Euler, 271, 325 ; mentions Lord 

Brouncker as Irish in his " In- 

troductio in Analys in infini- 

torium," 326 
Eureka Stockade, Ballarat, 48 ; 

became foundation of Australian 

self-government, 49 
Eustachius, the works of, hidden 

for many generations, 328 
Everard, Colonel Sir Nugent, 241 



Faction fighting, a description of, 
173 

Faraday, the fame of, 69 ; was 
a Sandemanian, 146, 321 

Fenians, first to grasp thoroughly 
the real significance of organisa- 
tion, 27 ; movement struck 
very deep in Ireland, 28, 29 ; 
rescue of Fenian leaders at 
Manchester, 30 ; first to ex- 
tend Irish movement to 
America, 31 ; stamped out 
ruthlessly in Ireland, 31, 109 ; 
a secret organisation, 172 ; in 
many ways marks beginning of 
recent Irish history, 173 ; plans 
never fully developed, 174, 175, 
176, 185, 204; a literature of 
its own, 293 

Fermanagh, woollen factories of, 
244 

Field, William, M.P., 240 n. 

Fielding, 279 

Filgate, W. T. Macartney, author 
indebted to, for many of the 
particulars in the chapter on 
Industrial Development, 242 n. 

Finerty, Colonel John, one of the 
most powerful platform orators 
in America, 110, 111, 112 

Fitzgerald, an Irishman, men- 
tioned by Hertz in his " Unter- 
suchung fiber die Ausbreitung 
der elektrischen Kraft," 327 

Fitzwilliam, Lord, active in pro- 
moting afforestation in Ireland, 
257 n. 

Flanagan, Rev. John, quotation 
from a speech of, delivered at 
Newbliss, Co. Monaghan, 162 n. 



378 



INDEX 



Flood, Henry, the " statesman " 
of the Irish party, 19 

Foley, O'Connell's statue the 
masterpiece of, 22 

Fourier, cited in regard to the 
development of science, 322 

Fox, 161 n. 

France, Anatole, great writer, 133 

France, methods of intensive cul- 
ture in, 81, 132, 223 

Frederick the Great, 324, 325 

Frederick III, of Germany, the 
saying of, 79 

" Freeman's Journal," 78, 143 n., 
144 n. 

French, the, in Bantry Bay, 23 

G 

Gaelic Athletic Association, 185 

Gaelic League, has accomplished 
a great work in Ireland, 181 

Galileo, 7, 139 n., the modern 
world begins with, 320 ; im- 
prisonment of, 328, 333 

Galois, 334 

Galway, had commerce with 
Spain, 48 ; home of the Lynch 
family for centuries, 48 ; author 
stood as parliamentary candi- 
date for, 57 ; author defeated 
in election, 57 ; author elected 
as Member of Parliament for, 
62, 141 n. 

Garrick, 282 

Gauss, called mathematics the 
queen of sciences, 323, 334 

Geological Survey, of Ireland, 
259 n. 

German Emperor, 161 n. 

German organisation in America, 
121 

Germany, Roman Catholic states 
least progressive in, 131, 201 n. ; 
system of education in, greatly 
due to William von Humboldt, 
262 ; technical education in, 
262 n. ; Kerschensteiner's edu- 
cational system in, 274 

Gibbon, 279 

Gil Bias, affords a study of human 
nature and society, 309 

Gladstone, 56, 179 ; analogies of, 
drawn from foreign countries 
not conclusive, 198, 289 

Glanville, H. J., M.P., author's 
conversation with, 283 n. 



Goethe, 280 

Goldsmith, is he representative of 

Irish literature ? 279, 280, 282 ; 

Padraic Colum presents the real, 

283, 312 
Gonne, Miss Maud, founder and 

editor of " Irlande Libre," 196 
Gormanstown, district of Meath, 

250 
Grattan, the Parliament of, 18 ; 

allowed the Volunteers to be 

disbanded, 19, 20, 196 
Grattan's Parliament, was not a 

good parliament, 18, 19, 20, 170, 

225 
Greer, Rev. R. Ussher, Episco- 
palian Rector, quotation from 

a lecture of, 160 n., 162 n. 
Gregory, Lady, author of " The 

Workhouse Ward," 301, 302 
Griffin, Gerald, author of " The 

Collegians," 302 
Griffith, Arthur, editor of Sinn 

Fein Newspaper, 196 
Guinness, the famous brewers, 239 
Gwynne, Stephen, M.P., 144 n. ; 

lover of letters, 302 



H 

Hamilton, William Rowan, 
" Quarternions," 322, 325 n. ; 
carved on a bridge in Dublin the 
symbols indicating the principles 
of the Quarternion system, 326 ; 
well known for his works in 
mathematics, 326 

Hannay, Rev. James Owen, has 
adopted nom-de-plume, George 
Birmingham, author of the play 
" General John Regan," 302 

Harland and Wolff, shipbuilders, 
251 

Harris, H. P., J.P., letter of, on 
toleration, 149 n. 

Hayden, Mr., M.P., 153 n., 154 n. 

Healy, Timothy, said Parnell was 
like the iron core in electric 
magnet, 35, 55 ; called the 
Irish " fissiparous," 64, 135 n. 

Hell, one of the proudest posses- 
sions of our race ; 146 ; Parlia- 
ment in, 209 

Helmholtz, cited in regard to the 
development of science, 322, 
325 n. 

Henderson, Arthur, labour leader, 



INDEX 



379 



" a Wesleyan preacher of great 
piety," 126 n. 

Henry II, the conquest of Ire- 
land, 17, 66 

Henry VIII, the " reformation " 
as conceived by, 13 ; the suc- 
cessive plantations of, 15 

Hertz, 321, 322, 325 n. 

Hippocrates, 7, 322 

History, Irish, terribly entangled, 
1, 4; makes doleful reading, 15; 
not the story of causal happen- 
ings, 341 

Holder, 325 n. 

Holland, 244, 248, 251 ; scientific 
output of, considerable, 328 

Home Rule, 76, 77 ; Act, 79, 95, 
96, 101, 102, 123 ; critical periods 
of debate on, Bill, 137 ; battle 
of, waged round the question 
of toleration, 148, 158, 159 n., 
161 n. ; Bill, has found its way 
on the Statute Book, 188, 198 ; 
kept in being bv the Parliament 
Act, 226, 231, 235, 338 

Home Rule Federation, Irish 
organisation which followed the 
Fenian movement, the leading 
spirit of which was Butt, 176 

House of Commons, qualifications 
necessary for a legislator in, 
210 ; a great conservative force, 
221, 222 ; Lord C. Beresford's 
humorous utterance in, 284 

House of Lords, 226 

Howitz, a Danish expert, sent to 
Ireland to study the question of 
afforestation, 257 n. 

Humboldt, William von, remo- 
delled the educational system 
of Germany, 262, 273 

Hungarian Policy, advocated by 
Sinn Fein, 197 

Hunt, Leigh, 287 ; Keats associa- 
tion with, 316 

Huxley, 271 

Huyghens, cited in regard to the 
development of science, 322 

Hyde, Dr. Douglas, inspirator of 
Gaelic League, 181, 294 



Independent, Irish, 78 
Inish Murray, the monks of, 8 
Invincibles, the, an Irish Organi- 
sation, secret, 178, 182 



Ireland, one of the most assimila- 
tive countries in the world, 2; 
the land of " Saints and Schol- 
ars," 5, 6 ; tried by ordeal of 
education, 7, 8 ; under the 
Commonwealth, 15 ; described 
by Duffy as corpse on dissecting 
table, 26 ; always shown im- 
mense vitality, 27 ; 68, 70, 72 ; 
likened to Poland, 74 ; 75, 76 ; 
choked by mandarins, 80 ; 82 ; 
the government of, 83, 84 n., 91, 
94, 95, 101, 102, 103, 118, 133, 
152 n., 157, 161 n., 165, 167, 
175, 181, 195, 196, 202 n., 205, 
206, 208, 233, 235, 236, 239, 240, 
241, 242, 248, 249, 251 ; glass 
manufacture of, 252 n. ; not 
rich in minerals, 253 ; incom- 
petence of government of, 256 ; 
afforestation of, 256 n. ; educa- 
tion of, faulty, 262, 263 ; educa- 
tional curriculum in, badly con- 
ceived, 271 ; still waits for her 
National Anthem, 290; 294; 
mystics of, 295 ; hope for a 
Burns of, 318 ; civil war would 
be calamitous to all in, 338 ; 
spoils system would be moral 
plague in, 339 ; foundation of, 
stronger, more hopeful, more 
progressive, 340, 342 ; restless- 
ness of, 343 ; qualities of, 344 ; 
integrity of, 345 

" Irlande Libre," a newspaper 
founded and edited by Miss 
Maud Gonne, 196 

Irish Agricultural Organisation 
Society, greatly aided co-opera- 
tion, 259 ; note on work of, 367, 
369 

Irish Forestry Society, revived 
interest in the subject of affores- 
tation, 257 n. 

" Irish Freedom," 78, 150 

" Irish Homestead," 260 n., 367 

Irish Renaissance, 294, 318 

Irish Republican Brotherhood, 
known as the Fenians. 172 

Irishtown, in Mayo, scene of first 
meeting of the Land League, 44 

" Irish Volunteer," 78 

" Irish Worker," 78 

" Irish World," 78 

Irvine, Alexander, author of " My 
Lady of the Chimney Corner," 
293 



380 



INDEX 



Ito, Marquis, leader of progress in 
Japan, moral of work of, 194 



Jackson, Andrew, author found 
little that was reminiscent of 
the spirit of, in first view of 
Americans, 106 

Jackson, Gentleman, his indulgent 
appreciation of Byron, 29 

Jacobi,the mathematical works of, 
271, 325 n., 330 

Jacobs, Messrs., biscuit makers, 
252 

James II, might have done 
wonders in Ireland had he 
seized the spirit of the people, 
16; ran from Boyne, 16, 166 

Japanese, eclectic in their regard 
of the world, 193 

Jefferson, author found little that 
was reminiscent of the spirit of, 
in first view of Americans, 106 

Joanna Southcote's persuasion, a 
religious sect of recent origin, 145 

John XXII, Pope, aided Edward I 
in annexation of Ireland, 134 n. 

" John Bull," a quotation from, 
referring to the Rev. W. Bankes 
Williams, illustrating the meth- 
ods of a clergyman in his 
opposition to Radicals, 126 n. 

Johnson, the impression of Gold- 
smith's conversation with, 282 

Joule, cited in regard to the de- 
velopment of science, 322 

Jourdain, Philip E. B., 325 n. 

Joyce, Dr. W. P., author of "A 
Social History of Ancient Ire- 
land," 6 

K 

Keane, Rev. C. E., 160 n. 

Keats, the fame of, 69 ; inspired 
interpreter of Truth, 228, 229, 
279, 286; his " Endymion " 
one of the most marvellous 
poems of all literature, 316 ; 
his association with Leigh Hunt, 
316, 317 ; poetry of, springs 
from illumination of the spiri- 
tual world of man, 320 n. 

Kelly, Colonel, a Fenian Leader, 30 

Kelly, R. J., compiled a volume of 
"Popular and Patriotic Poetry," 
285 



Kelvin, Lord, previously known 

as Thomson, 326 
Kennedy, Bart, 141 n. 
Kepler, 329 

Kerry, the industries of, 242 
Kerschensteiner, Dr., educational 

reformer in Germany, 274 
Kettle, Mr. T. M., 188; article 

of, in " English Review " deal- 
ing with Belfast, 336 n. 
Kickham, contributor to Fenian 

newspaper, 27, 294 
Kilkee, in the hands of one man, 

99, 100, 101 
Kilkenny, the industries of, 243, 

248, 252, 257 n. 
Kilrush, 90, 97 ; in the hands of 

one man, 98, 99 
Kitchener, Lord, 188 ; claimed 

as being an Irishman, 281 
Knox, John, 1 58 ; the robust 

faith of, 268 
Kynoch's of Arklow, 238 



Labouchere, Henry, supposed to 
have originated the famous Plan 
of Campaign, 180 

Lagrange, 325 n., 326, 330 

Lalor, Peter, leader of miners at 
the Eureka Stockade, after- 
wards Speaker of the Legisla- 
tive Assembly of Victoria, 48, 
49 

Lalor, Richard Finton, brother of 
Peter Lalor, initiated Tenants' 
Rights Organisation, 172 

Land Act of 1909, 86, 89 

Land Campaign, would not have 
been commenced without the 
Fenians, 30 

Land League, founded by Davitt, 
177, 178, 179; its suppression, 
188, 294 

Lane, Denny, of Cork, knew 
O'Connell and heard him speak, 
22 n. 

Laplace, cited in regard to the 
development of science, 322 

Larkin, one of the Fenians known 
as Manchester martyrs, 30 

Lavoisier, cited in regard to the 
development of science, 322 

" Leader," The, 78 

Leamy, an Irish writer, 302 

Ledwidge, Francis, one of the 
youngest and newest of Irish 



INDEX 



381 



poets, 311; poem of, "To a 
Linnet in a Cage," quoted, 312 

Leinster, woollen mills of, 244 

Leinster Hall, vote of confidence 
in Parnell passed at, 56 

Lever, author of " Charles 
O'Malley," " Harry Lorrequer " 
and " The Dodd Family 
Abroad," 4, 11, 283 ; not greatly 
read now in Ireland, upbubbling 
zest of, 284; 291, 297 

Limerick, the industries of, 242, 
252 

Liscannor, the port of shipment 
of slate, 255 

Lissadell. in Co. Sligo, 251 

Lissoy, in Westmeath, 280 

Locke, deep and candid philo- 
sopher, said that there is no 
error that the human race has 
not at some time or other 
adopted, 146, 323 

Loeb, the experiments of, 322 

London, Bishop of, 168 

Londonderry, the industries of, 
244, 245 

Lover, Samuel, at one time no less 
popular than Lever, 284, 285 

Luby, contributor to the Fenian 
newspaper, 27, 293 

Lucan, woollen mills of, 243 

Lulli, Raymond, gained from the 
Arabs the teachings which they 
had derived from Greek sources, 
333 

Lutece, the cultured inhabitants 
of, 309 

Luther, the Reformation of, 65 ; 
appears as a reactionary factor, 
66 

Lynch, John, author's father, 
second in command to Peter 
Lalor at the Eureka Stockade, 
48 ; was centre of public de- 
monstration at site of Stockade 
fifty years later, 49 

Lynch, Canon J. F., article on 
Maelsechlainn (Malachy), 10 n. 

Lynd, Robert, author of " Home 
Life in Ireland," 303 

M 
Macaulay, Rev. Dr., quotation 

from, 160 n. 
Macaulay's "History of England,"a 

quotation from, pointing out the 



difference of prosperity between 
Protestant communities and 
those under the domination of 
the Church of Rome, 130 n. 

MacCullagh, name met with in the 
field of mathematics, 326 

MacCathmhaoil, Seosamh (James 
Campbell), The Mountainy Sin- 
ger, 205 ; gives us lyric quality 
with true Irish spirit, 311 ; 
Lasarfhionn ni Cholumain 
quoted, 312, 313, 314 

Macdonnell, Lord Anthony, an 
organiser in India, 170 

MacGregor, author's mother kins- 
man of Rob Roy, 50 

Mach, 320 n. 

MacKenna, Stephen, the sensitive 
and charming, 303 

MacKinley, President, 117, 120 

MacLiag, his account of the battle 
of Clontarf , 10 n, 

MacManus, Seaumas, 302 

MacNeill, Eion, 188 

MacNeill, J. G. Swift, M.P., K.C., 
letter of, addressed to the Rt. 
Rev. Dr. D'Arcy, 124 n. 

MacOlave, Father, represents one 
type of priests. 155 

MacVeagh, J., M.P., 127 n. 

Madrid, 106 

Maelmordha, King of Leinster, 
joined the Danes, 9 

Magellan, 131 

Manchester Martyrs, 30 

Mangan, James Clarence, poems of, 
exercised a singular fascination 
in the minds of Irish students of 
literature, 289 

Manning, Cardinal, 157 n. 

Marconi, Signor, highly dis- 
tinguished in science, liis mother 
Irish, 327 

Mariotte's Law, called Boyle's Law 
in this country, 323 

Marlborough, 56 

Mary, the successive plantations 
of, 15 

Maupertuis, celebrated French 
physicist and mathematician, 
324 ; ridiculed in a pamphlet 
published by Voltaire, 325 

Maxwell, the calculus of, ex- 
pounding Faraday, 321 

Mayer, A., 324 n. 

Mayer, R., cited in regard to the 
development of science, 322 



382 



INDEX 



Mayne, Rutherford, author of 
characteristic Irish play " The 
Drone," 4 

Mayo, Davitt, commenced his 
Land Campaign in, 44 

M'Cann case, debate in the House 
of Commons, 141, 141 n. 

Meade, Alderman, the saying of, 
143 n. 

Meagher, Thomas Francis, Young 
Irelander, 24 ; potent inspirator, 
25 ; comparable to Emmet, 26 ; 
suffered transportation, 26 ; 
name still potent to stir an Irish 
assembly, 26, 29, 102 

Meath, the Gormanstown district 
of, 250 

Melbourne, Australia, 48 ; author 
studied in, 52 

Mitchel, John, name not Hibernian, 
not a Roman Catholic, 2 ; Young 
Irelander, 24 ; a Protestant, 
25 ; potent inspirator, 25 ; his 
" Jail Journal," 25 ; name still 
potent to stir an Irish assembly, 
26 

Milesians, " the wrongs done to," 
1 

Mill, James, the advice of, given to 
his son John Stuart Mill, 5 

Miller, Hugh, on " Eve of St. 
Agnes" of Keats, 286; author 
of "The Old Red Sandstone," 
287, 287 n. 

Millet, Colum's poems reminiscent 
of, 314 

Milton, John, the fame of, 69, 
176 ; author of " Paradise 
Lost " describes great Parlia- 
ment in Hell, 209, 279 

Mohammedans, a religious sect of 
ancient origin, 146 

Moliere, 299, 301 ; a great amuseur, 
319 

Molly Maguires, William O'Brien 
denounced the Ancient Order of 
Hibernians as, 182; a short ac- 
count of, 182 n. 

Molyneux, Irish philosopher 
friend of Locke, 323 

Montgomery Act, 233 

Moore, Count, active in assisting 
afforestation in Ireland, 257 n. 

Moore, F. Frankfort, wrote novel 
" The Ulsterman," 336 n. 

Moore, Tom, favourite national 
poet of Ireland, 280 ; suffers 



undue depreciation, 286 ; songs 
from " Lalla Rookh " of, sung 
on Tigris, 287 ; braved society by 
visiting Leigh Hunt in prison, 
287 ; indebted to old Irish airs 
for charm of songs, 288 ; is less 
a favourite now than Thomas 
Davis, 288 ; melodious pipings 
of, superior to strain of the Yeats 
school, 297 

Moore, William, a reactionary 
factor, 66, 161 n., 165 

Mormons, a religious sect of recent 
origin, 145 

Morris, Lord, Irish Unionist, 64 

Morton, Rev. H. C, 143 n. 

MotuProprio, decree of the Pope, 
ordained, amongst other things, 
that no Catholic should bring 
an action against a priest, 142, 
142 n. 

Munich, educational sytem of, 274 

Munster, woollen mills of, 244 

Murger, 176 

Murphy, an Irish name met with 
more than once in traversing 
the whole range of science, 327 

Murphy (Dr.), with his button, a 
bright name in the science of 
America, 119 

Murray, Miss, author of " Com- 
mercial Relations," 336 n. 

N 

Napoleon III, 132 

National Federation, founded in 
1891, succeeded the Land 
League, 181 

National League, founded in 1884, 
took the place of the Land 
League, 180 

National University, established 
to meet the failure of Trinity 
College to attract Nationalist 
students, 330 

National Volunteers, the creation 
of, 185, 187, 188, 338 

Nelson, 56 

Ne Temere decree, declares mar- 
riages between Catholics and 
Protestants null and void in the 
eyes of the Church, 139 

Newton, beclouded his fame by 
attempts to interpret Hebrew 
prophecies according to data 
of modern science, 146, 313, 323 



INDEX 



383 



Nisbet, Dr. J., high authority on 
the subject of afforestation in 
Ireland, 257 n., 259 n. 

Norway, the scientific output of, 
considerable, 328 

Nulty, Dr., 153 n. 



O'Brien, name met in the field of 
mathematics, 326 

O'Brien, one of those known as 
Manchester martyrs, 30 

O'Brien, Smith, chief of Young 
Irelanders, 24 ; a Protestant, 
25 

O'Brien, William, 55, 135 n. ; de- 
nounced the Ancient Order of 
Hibernians, 182 ; founded All- 
For-Ireland League, 185, 205, 
302 

O'Carroll's, feud of, typical, 11 

O'Connell, the saying of, " Our 
Religion from Rome our poli- 
tics from home," 18, 134; won 
Catholic Emancipation, 22 ; 
epitomised Ireland, 22 ; child 
of the Church, 23 ; Tribune 
of the people, 23 ; spoke 
Irish, but discredited the lan- 
guage, 23 ; born of the land- 
lord class, 24, 33, 56 ; his say- 
ing " England's danger is Ire- 
land's opportunity," 109, 134, 
135 ; Repeal movement of, 172 

O'Connor, James, K.C., Solicitor- 
General for Ireland, gives impres- 
sive figures on the population 
of Ireland in a brochure entitled 
" A Plea for Home Rule," 93 n. 

O'Connor, T. P., M.P., gives a note 
on Parnell, 37, 55 

Old Pretender, 16 

O'Leary, an Irish- American pedes- 
trian, 38 

O'Leary, Ellen, an Irish writer of 
the days of the Fenian move- 
ment, 293 

O'Leary, John, contributed to 
Penian newspaper, a man of 
high literary culture, 27 ; sen- 
tenced to imprisonment, 174 ; 
his opinion of James Stephens, 
175; story of, 279, 280 

Orange Lodges, 166 ; the intoler- 
ance of, 181 ; Duke of Cumber- 
land " Grand Master " of, 163 n. 



Organisations indigenous on Irish 
soil, 170 

O'Reilly, John Boyle, an active 
agent of propaganda of the 
Fenian movement in the Army, 
28 ; was true poet, 29 ; cele- 
brated John L. Sullivan in 
poetic prose, 106 

O'Riordan, Conal, author of " The 
Piper " and " Shakespeare's 
End," 303 

O'Shaughnessy, commenced the 
manufacture of woollen goods 
in Dripsey, 243 

O'Sullivan, Seumas, gave rare 
delicacy of nuances, 311 ; 
" Earth Lover " of, quoted, 314 

Othello, 321 



Paoli, the saying of, 20 

Papal decrees, two, launched 
during critical periods of the 
Home Rule Bill debates, 137 

Parliament, 209-31 

Parliament Act, 225 ; the effect 
of, 226 

Parnell, Charles Stuart, name not 
Hibernian, not a Roman Catho- 
lic, 2 ; had a powerful influence 
in the making of modern Ire- 
land, 4 ; seems hardly to have 
studied Irish history at all, 4 ; 
agricultural reforms, of, 5, 23, 
30 ; the rise of, 32 ; hailed from 
the landlord class, 33 ; his 
determination, 34 ; affinities 
with Csesar and Bonaparte, 34 ; 
T. Healy said, Parnell was like 
iron core in an electro magnet, 
35 ; was the soul of the Irish 
movement, 36, 37 ; T. P. 
O'Connor's reminiscence of, 37, 
38 ; achievements of, written on 
the Statute Books of Great 
Britain, 39 ; his downfall, 39 ; 
was aristocrat, 40 ; Davitt's 
opinion of, 42 ; author's im- 
pression of, 53, 54 ; agent of 
Ireland's redemption, 55 ; the 
human side of his character, 
55 ; vote of confidence in, 
passed at Leinster Hall, 56 ; the 
death of, 56, 60, 95, 177, 178 ; 
placed his resignation in the 
hands of Mr. Gladstone, owing 
to Phoenix Park murders, 179 ; 



384 



INDEX 



his signature to the " No Rent " 
manifesto, 179; very little origin- 
ally created by, 180 ; the 
greatest leader of whom Ireland 
can boast in her whole history, 
180 ; 234; the downfall of, 294; 
the words of, 339 

Pasteur, a great thinker devoted 
to the advancement of science, 
133 

Pasteur School, 222 

Patterson, Rev. Dr., quotation 
from, 162 n. 

Peculiar People, a religious sect 
of recent origin, 145 

Persico, Monsignor, Papal Envoy 
to Ireland, 17 

Phillips, Justin, quotation of an 
article by, in "Irish Review," 
dealingwith afforestation, 258 n. 

Phoenix Park, Mr. Burke and 
Lord F. Cavendish assassinated 
in, 178 

Pindar, 29, 317 

Pinkerton, a Unitarian Ulster far- 
mer, authors' opponent in elec- 
tion at Galway, 57, 59 

Pitt, 19 ; had the majority of the 
bishops on his side in the policy 
of the Union, 134 n. 

Pius IX, 138 n. 

Plan of Campaign, evolved under 
the National League, supposed to 
have been originated by Henry 
Labouchere, 180 

Plato, 319, 332 

"Playboy of the Western World," 
a lively detail of the great fresco 
of literature, 298, 303 ; much 
appreciated and misunderstood 
by an English audience, 304 ; 
regarded seriously plot of, is 
absurd, 305, 306, 307 ; puzzled 
Parisians, 308, 309; 321 

Plunkett, Sir Horace, pioneer of 
the spirit of co-operation, 259 

Plutarch, 215, 227 

Plutarch's men, distinguished by 
character, 215 

Plymouth Brethren, a religious sect 
of recent origin, 145 

Poincare, Henri, a great thinker 
devoted to the development of 
science, 133 

Poisson led the way in the presenta- 
tion of the fundamental f ormulse 
of mechanics, 326 



Pope Adrian IV, the Bull of, 17 
Portugal once divided with Spain 

the spoils of the ocean, 131 
Prempeh, King of Ashanti, 60 
Priests, the undue influence of, 

129 ; not all of one type, 154 
Pyke, Father, represents one type 

of priests, 156 

Q 

" Quixote, Don," reveals philo- 
sophy of Cervantes, 309 

R 

Race, no Irish, in any strict sense, 
3 

Raftery, Father, represents one 
type of priest, 154 

Ramsay, Sir William, author of 
an article indicating Germany's 
greatness in industrial develop- 
ment, 262 n. 

Randall, Jack, claimed as Irish, 
281 

Rasselas, in the "Happy Garden," 
author felt like : no man can be 
a Member of Parliament, 210 

Redmond, John, leader of the 
Home Rule movement of the 
present day, 45, 55, 78 ; a 
speech of, in which he drew 
comparison between the condi- 
tions of administration in Ire- 
land and in Scotland, 94 n., 
135 n., 189 

Religion, the question of, 17 

Repeal Movement, in force from 
1840 to 1846, 172 

Republic, of Ireland, difficulties 
of , 2 1 ; author's desire to make 
Ireland a, 59, 62 ; of South 
Africa, author's sympathy with, 
62, 108, 131, 132, 201 n., 217 

Ribbon Men, a sectional body of 
United Irishmen, 171 

Robertson, J. M., M.P., author of 
" Trade and Tariffs," 336 n. 

Roche, Jeffrey, wrote stirring 
patriotic American poems, 29, 
29 n. 

Rodin, upheld the high ideal of 
art, 133, 151 n. 

Rolleston, the scholarly, 303 

Roman Catholic States, in Ger- 
many, the least progressive, 131 

Rome, on the side of England 



INDEX 



385 



against Ireland, 17, 132, 133, 
135; endeavoured to discredit 
Parnell Testimonial, 134 ; in- 
tervened to suppress Plan of 
Campaign, 134, 134 n. ; rulers 
of, planted themselves again 
and again in the path of De- 
mocracy, 136, 136 n. ; Greek 
civilisation trampled on by the 
power of, 332 ; no patriotic 
Nationalist could hope for un- 
restrained domination of, in 
Ireland, 338 

Rome, Church of, 65 

Rooney, William, author of " The 
Men of the West," 290, 291 

Roosevelt, President, has a strain 
of Irish blood in his veins, 120 

Rosebery, Lord, author's article 
on, 229, 230 

Rumford, cited in regard to the 
development of science, 322 

Rush, County Dublin, 251 

Russell, G. (A. E.), keen agricul- 
turist, 247 ; one of the most 
eminent of modern Irishmen, 
295 ; is painter, poet, prophet, 
writes like a poet on growing of 
artichokes, 295 

Russell, Lord John, 163 n. 

Russia, importation of flax from, 
244 

Ryan, W. P., author of " Pope's 
Green Isle," 151 n. 



Sadler, the regime of, 44 

Sallybrook, near Cork, factory for 
the manufacture of woollen 
goods started at, 243 

Salmon, spoken of as Irish, but 
showed no sympathy to Na- 
tionalist aspirations, 326 

Saugnier, M. Marc, 138 n. 

Saxony, the King of, 137 n. 

Sayers, Tom, claimed as Irish, 281 

Schiller, 320 

Schools, Bardie, 6, 7 

Schwann, the experiments of, 321 

Science, the woof of civilisation, 
82, 332 

Sects, religious, of recent origin, 
145 

Serbia, scientific output of, con- 
siderable, 328 



Sexton, 55, 135 n. 

Shackleton, Sir Ernest, claimed as 
Irish, 281 

Shakespeare, public like quota- 
tions from, 220 ; 268, 279, 303, 
319 

Shaw, 44 ; succeeded Isaac Butt, 
believed that the best policy 
for Ireland was that the Irish 
party should show itself as a 
model of behaviour and trust to 
the goodwill of England, 177 

Shaw, George Bernard, 136 n., 
165 ; a production of, in Paris, 
like bringing coals to New- 
castle, 308 

Shelley, 49, 279; the thrilling 
ecstasy of, 286 ; splendour of 
inspired passages, 320 n. 

Sheridan, fascinating in wit, 33 ; 
cited as one of the three great 
English writers, 279 ; is he re- 
presentative of Irish literature ? 
280 ; less known than Moore, 
280 ; his outlook that of an 
Englishman moving in what is 
called " high society," 281 

Sigerson, Dr., has much to say on 
the battle of Clontarf , 10 n. 

Sinn Fein, 78, 188; the meaning 
of, 189, 191-208 

"Sinn Fein" newspaper, edited 
by Arthur Griffith, 196 

Sitric, a Danish Chieftain, married 
to Brian Boru's daughter, 9 

Skeffington, Sheehy, 136 n. 

Smith, Joseph, of Lowell, author's 
pilgrimage with, 29 

Smythesdale, near Ballarat, Aus- 
tralia, author's father civil 
engineer at, 49 

Sophocles, great beyond artistry, 
320 w. 

Spain, had commerce with Gal- 
way, 48 ; gradually sank in the 
scale of the nations, 131 

Spanish Point, 99 

Starkie, Dr. W. J. M., Resident 
Commissioner of Board of 
Education in Ireland, 264, 
272 n. 

Steinbeis, Dr. von, successfully 
promoted industries in Wurtem- 
burg, quoted, 260 n. 

Stephens, James, his opinion of 
the oratory of Doheny, 24 n. ; 
leader of the Fenians, 27, 30, 



25 



386 



INDEX 



172, 173 ; imprisonment of, | 
174 ; author's meeting with, | 
174 ; O'Leary's opinion of, j 
175, 176 

Stephens, James (poet), 205, 316 ; j 
slight traces of school of Yeats i 
in, but poet's instinct of, too | 
determined to be held within j 
that compass, 316 

Sterne, cited as one of the " three 
great English writers," 279 ; 
is he representative of Irish 
literature? 280; less known than 
Moore, 280 ; born in Clonmel, 
281, 316 

Stokes, spoken of as Irish, but 
showed no sympathy with the 
Nationalist aspirations, 326 

Stuarts, devotion of the Irish to 
the cause of, 16; brilliant, 
charming, worthless, insupport- 
able, 16 

Suir, the Valley of, 250 

Sullivan, Alexander, believed by 
some to have engineered the 
plot of the slaying of Cronin, 117 

Sullivan, John L., his apprecia- 
tion of John Boyle O'Reilly, 
28 ; has made been famous in 
marble and celebrated in poetic 
prose, 106 

Sullivan, T. D., author of " God 
Save Ireland," 31 ; his songs, 
294 

Svampa, Cardinal, 138 to. 

Swedenborgians, a religious sect 
of recent origin, 145 

Swift, Dean, 161 to. ; interested 
in the coal question, 253 to. ; 
claimed as Irish, 281 

Switzerland, scientific output of, 
considerable, 328 

Synge, author of " Playboy of 
the Western World," which is a 
lively detail of the great fresco 
of literature, 299, 303, 304, 305 ; 
took notes of conversations of 
peasants, 306 ; personal de- 
scription of, 307, 308, 309 ; 
dying felt capable of new flights, 
311 ; wrote a " Deirdre," 310 ; 
had never seen "Deirdre," 310 



Tait, Professor, said at the time of 
the Revolution, with regard to 



scientific thought, that the 
French were giants and the rest 
of the world pigmies, 327 

Tammanv Hall, the origin of, 113, 
115, 116 

Tariff Reform, the question of, 
223 

Tenants' Rights Organisation, 
founded on the initiative of 
Richard Finton Lalor, 172 

Teufelsdrockh, the learning of, 
211 

Thackeray, says that genius, de- 
votion, distinction, seem as 
nothing compared with calling 
a Duke your cousin, 217, 279 ; 
his story of an Irish jarvey, 
284, 285 

Thomson, afterwards known as 
Lord Kelvin, claimed as Irish, 
but showed no sympathy with 
Nationalists' aspirations, 326 

Timoleon, 215 

Tipperary, the glove-making of, 
252 

Toleration, as a virtue, 66 ; a 
word that has seen too much 
service, 247 ; not wanted as a 
goal, 148 ; Home Rule waged 
round the question of, 148, 
148 to., 150 to., 151 to., 152 to. 

Tone, Wolfe, name not Hibernian, 
not a Roman Catholic, 2 ; his 
United Irishmen, 15; "one of 
Plutarch's men," 20, 21, 22, 23, 
77, 102 ; the leading spirit of 
the United Irishmen, 171 ; his 
death, 171; 203, 204; the 
ideals of, 295 

Torquemada, 153 to. ; the robust 
faith of, 268 

Toscanelli, accepted the ideas of 
Erastosthenes, 333 

Toulon, plan of attack of Napoleon 
Bonaparte's commander at, 256 

Town Tenants Leagiie, formed to 
secure fair rent, fixity of tenure, 
compensation for improve - 
ments, 96 

Trinity College, great University, 
virtually closed to Catholic 
Nationalists, 328 ; its failure to 
attract Nationalist students has 
been met by the establishment 
of the National University, 330 

Turner, shall we not admire, be- 
cause Wilkie has painted, 309 



INDEX 



387 



Tynan, Katharine, Irish writer, 

favourite of many, 302 
Tyndal, spoken of as Irish, but 

showed no sympathy with 

Nationalist aspirations, 326 
Tyreonnell, Countess of, retort 

to James II, 16 
Tyrone, linen trade of, 2-14 

U 

Ulster, 2 ; Unionist representatives 
of, 3, 15; gun-running in, 108, 
158, 160 n. ; 166, 182, 187, 203, 
233, 235, 240 n., 241 n. ; woollen 
mills of, 244 ; grit of, 270 ; 
qualities of the men of, 244 ; 
need of religious freedom in, 
345 ; often used for brevity in- 
stead of N.E. Ulster, 335-40 

Ulster Players, visits to London, 
3 

Ulster Volunteers, their creation, 
185, 186, 188 

United Irish League, succeeded 
the National Federation, is 
National organisation, 181 

" United Irishman," an Irish 
newspaper, 196 

United Irishmen, an Irish or- 
ganisation of 1796-1798, 171 

Upstanding Glassites, a religious 
sect of recent origin, 145 



Vandeleur, Mr., owner of Kilrush, 
97 ; name not Milesian nor 
Norman, 98 

Vasco de Gama, 131 

Vatican, the intervention of, in 
Irish political affairs, 133 ; 
condemned Parnell Testi- 
monial, 134 n. 

Vesalius, 7, 139 n. ; persecuted 
and hounded to his death, 328 

Veto question, 134 

Victoria, Australia, Peter Lalor, 
Speaker in Legislative As- 
sembly of, 48 

Victoria, Queen, 163 n., 242 

Voltaire said that England was 
the country which had a hun- 
dred religions but only one 
sauce, 145, 324 ; published a 
pamphlet ridiculing Mauper- 
tuis, 325, 325 n. 

Volunteers, the creation, 20, 170 ; 



disbanded by their own mo- 
tion, 170 

W 

Walmsley, Bro. Rev. Mr., quota- 
tion from a speech of, at Relief 
of Derry anniversary at Castle 
Irvine, Irvinestown, 162 n. 

Walsh, Archbishop, 143 n. 

Walsh, Thomas, " renounced Po- 
pery," 15 

Washington, 106 

Waterford, the poultry trade of, 
248 

Webster, 159 n. 

"Weekly Independent," 153 n., 
269 n. 

Wellington, Duke of, said that 
Irishmen fought best in the 
wine countries, 249 ; a saving 
of, 281 

Welsh Disestablishment, 231 

Welsh, Freddie, claimed as Irish, 
281 

"Westmeath Examiner," 153 n. 

Wexford, poultry trade of, 248 

Whistler, 306 

Whiteboys, a sectional body of the 
United Irishmen, 171 

Whitman, Walt, Padraid Colum 
borrowed the form of, 314, 316 

Wibberley, T., a quotation from 
an article of, in " Irish Home- 
stead," 260 n. 

Wilkie, because he has painted 
shall we not admire Turner, 309 

William of Orange, the successive 
plantations of, 15, 165 

Williams, Rev. W. Bankes, re- 
ferred to in quotation from 
" John Bull," illustrating the 
methods of a clergyman in his 
opposition to Radicals, 126 n. 

Wilson, President, did not go to 
Irish when forming Cabinet, 120 

Wordsworth, 279 

Workman, Clark & Co., ship- 
builders, 251 

Wright, Sir Almroth, highly dis- 
tinguished in science, half Irish, 
327 



Yeats, W. B., introduced into Ire- 
land the Moonlight School of 



388 



INDEX 



Poetry, 296 ; ignored great 
thoughts and deep sincerity, 
297 ; now anathema to cer- 
tain former adulators, 298 ; at 
one time poetry of, considered 
as touch-stone of Nationalism, 
298; poetry of, tenuous, affected 
with air of something mysterious 
covering silliness, 299 ; re- 
quires to be defended now, 299 ; 
school of, reveals secret envy of 
bourgeois class, 299, 300 ; 
has deserved well of Irish litera- 
ture for foundation of the Abbey 



Theatre, 301 ; wrote a ghosted 

drama round Deirdre, 310, 316 
Young, Arthur, his study of France, 

103 
Young, exponent of the undu- 

latory theory of light, 223 
Young Irelanders, succeeded 

O'Connell, 24, 26, 27, 31, 32, 

172, 293 
Young Pretender, 16 



Zoroastrians, a religious sect of 
ancient origin, 146 



Piinted by Hazelly Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England. 



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MAP IV 



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Map I of this section is the key map. 



MAP V 



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Map I of this section is the key map. 




"tcs/jary 



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Pekcentages of Cathou 

The above map shows the portions of Ulster in which Catholics predominate, and the portions 
contain a majority of Catholics. If Antrim and Down be excluded, there is no homogeneous pop 
garnered together. In one Parliamentary division of Down, namely, South Down the Catholics 
Home Kuler In JIid-Armagh the Catholics are 42'8 of the population; in South Armagh the p. 
Dy a JNationalist. In Londonderry County the Catholics are 51-1 of the population in South Lond 
considerable the Catholics are 6P7 of the population. In three of the Parliamentary divisions of 
nTirT" ^ rotestants have a sm all majority; they are in the proportion of 5D3 to 48'7 thre 
Catholics are 55"4 of the population. In the whole of Ulster there are 890,880 non-Catholics a 




Protestants in Ulster. 

Protestants are in the ascendancy. The shaded parts are the county Parliamentary divisions, which 
any real sense of the words ; even in Antrim there is a considerable minority of Catholics all 

of the population ; and South Down is represented now, and always has been represented, by a 
is higher, fcr it is 68 - L' of the population ; South Armagh is now, and has always been, represented 
In North Fermanagh the Catholics have a small majority : tut in South Fermanagh the majority is 

"orth. East, and Mid, Catholics show percentages of 54 - 7^ 54'8, and 62 - 0. In only one division — the 
divisions out of the four are represented by Home Rulers. Taking the County as a whole, the 

6 Catholics. 



map vm 




SUMMARY OF CO-OPERATIVE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES, 1910. 
Map I of this section is the key map. 



MAP IX 




SUMMARY OF CO-OPERATIVE PoULTBY SOCIETIES, 1910. 

Map I of this section is the key map. 



MAP X 




Summary of Co-operative Creameries, 1910. 

Map I of this section is the key map. 



MAP XI 





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